


Warm Up

by faeleverte



Series: Out of the Ice [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bucky Barnes Feels, Feels, Fluff, Healing Sex, Healing Talks, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Steve Rogers Feels, all the feels, and then more sex, discussions of past horrors, healing tears, lordy so much sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:33:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeleverte/pseuds/faeleverte
Summary: The Sequel to Defrost. Bucky Barnes comes out of cryofreeze to get some good news, more good news, and some time with Steve.





	1. Chapter 1

Steve shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his khaki slacks as he watches the paleness of cryofreeze leech out of Bucky’s cheeks. He wants to touch, _needs_ to touch, to pull Bucky into his arms and taste his lips. He needs to feel Bucky’s hot breath and hotter tongue to know that he’s okay, that _they’re_ okay. That what happened last time wasn’t just a one time kind of thing. He bites his bottom lip to keep from snapping at T’Challa’s technicians. They’re only doing their jobs, and Steve doesn’t actually _want_ them to rush. Doesn’t want them to hurt Buck. 

But he _needs_ to touch, and quickly.

Bucky’s lashes flutter against his cheeks, and Steve’s breath catches when he remembers what those lashes felt like against his lips. He’s sure he’s shaking, so he crosses his arms over his chest and squeezes, trying to keep himself together. 

It’s just...it’s been almost a month, and going back to his hand and perfunctory orgasms to keep his sex drive under control lost it’s appeal the moment he kissed Bucky and Bucky kissed back. He’d never really needed the release before-- before the serum, that is. But then his libido got supercharged along with everything else about his body, except for the part of his brain that was supposed to want sex. _That_ only happened when he met someone he wanted to be close to, emotionally speaking. People like Peggy. And Buck. And...a few others that hadn’t worked out very well.

Steve is, to use Barton’s phrase, _horny as hell_ , and he’s desperate to tell Bucky a very _important_ piece of news. 

He needs to tell the news first, because, once he’s got Bucky’s mouth against his own and Bucky’s body under his hands, he’s going to forget everything else. He’s absolutely _positive_ of that, and his proof comes when the door opens and Bucky smiles at him, warm and welcoming and a little bit shy. Steve nearly forgets to breathe. 

_First tell him about the possibility of breaking his brainwashing,_ then _make love to him for the next forty-eight hours,_ he tells himself firmly.

All his plans nearly get swept away by Buck stepping into his arms and pressing their mouths together, right there in front of the technicians, a janitorial crew, God, and everyone. Steve starts to kiss back, but Bucky pulls away before he can get very far into it.

“I think we’d better go exchange greetings somewhere else.” Bucky steps away and gives Steve’s entire body a slow once-over. 

Steve wishes he’d listened to Wanda and worn the jeans and t-shirt combo she’d recommended. But he still feels weird dressed like that, like he’s trying to be someone he just _isn’t_. Still, Buck gives him a crooked grin, so Steve must look okay in the clothing he’d picked instead.

“I...I have some things to tell you.” Steve makes himself say it, even though now all he wants to do is drag Bucky to the nearest flat surface and get them both naked as fast as he can. “Important things.”

Bucky’s smile fades, his whole face going a bit guarded. Steve grabs his arm, squeezing harder than is necessary, but he _hates_ that look on Bucky’s face. He’s seen it enough to last for three lifetimes...even if they’re all as long as his own has already been.

“Not bad! It’s all good!” Steve wants to kiss him again, but Buck glances at everyone else in the room, and Steve can tell he won’t be comfortable kissing a second time in front of all those people. “Come on. We’ll go...we’re in a different spot this time. We can go talk there.”

*******

Bucky tries to get his head around the fact that an entire month has passed since Steve last visited. To him, mentally and physically, it’s barely been a blink. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then he opened his eyes and let it out. If it wasn’t for the way Steve had been looking at him– the way Steve is _still_ looking at him– Bucky would find it entirely impossible to believe that time has passed. But Steve is shaking and pale around the edges, watching every move Bucky makes with eyes that are full of something that looks like hunger. He keeps licking his lips when he glances over at Bucky, and Bucky could _swear_ that Steve hasn’t actually met his eyes yet. He can practically feel Steve’s gaze on his neck, his chest, his legs, the fly of his pants. 

Something in his own head or hormones must know better than his internal clock how much time has passed, though, because he finds himself just watching Steve’s lips move instead of listening to the words he's saying. He wants those lips against his own, but he mostly wants to wait until they’re behind a locked door. He’s absolutely _positive_ that he’s not going to be able to stop once they start, and he doesn’t think anyone else needs to see him begging for Steve’s touch. He _knows_ no one needs to see him begging to suck Steve off, and he’s about five minutes away from doing so. 

Great. He’s gone from being a ladies’ man to really _easy_ for Steve. Who needs romancing when you’ve got Captain America objectifying your body? Who needs romance when you’re doing the same right back at Cap...

He makes a mental note to _never_ say that in his out-loud voice. Steve would never let him live it down. Smug little punk. Always so damned sure that he’s always right, and always so damned sure that Bucky belongs to him or something. He really doesn’t need to know that he’s right about that one. Bucky’s never had much dignity when it comes to girls and sex, but he’s always been willing to throw himself to the wolves for Steve. He wonders what it means that he’s clearly transferred that attitude from friendship to friendship with sex. 

Steve leads him to a room far, _far_ away from the lab that Bucky would call home, if he was awake when stayed there. The door closes behind them, and Bucky’s almost disappointed to find that the new sitting room consists of two chairs, a smallish chaise, and a normal couch instead of the overgrown bed-like couch of the other place. He wouldn’t mind repeating their encounters on the sofa before. On the other hand, the angle of the seat and back of the chaise suggest a few things to Bucky’s always overactive imagination, ways he can cradle Steve’s body with his own and leave his hand free to do some exploring. 

Through an open door down the hallway to the right, Bucky can see part of a bed that’s got to be three times the size of any bed he’s ever clapped eyes on before. _Now_ he thinks he knows why they have _this_ room. Clearly T’Challa figured out that no one was sleeping on the couch in the other place and decided to try to make them more comfortable. It’s nice of him and all, but Bucky isn’t sure they need quite _that_ much space. It’s not like he and Steve leave much room between them, and, if Steve’s naked, Bucky has no intention of leaving _any_ room between them.

“How long’ve you got?” He starts to wrestle free of his hoodie, and then Steve is there, unzipping the sweatshirt with one hand, cupping the side of Bucky’s face with the other. Instead of an answer, Bucky gets a kiss, and he starts to think words are overrated. It’s a bit direct, but he can’t stop himself from reaching down to cup the front of Steve’s pants, just to feel Steve swelling and hardening in his hand.

“I have to tell you first!” Steve closes his eyes and lets his head hang back. His hips thrust forward just a bit, and Bucky squeezes lightly as a reward. “Wait! Please, Buck! If we start, I’m going to...Oh _shit_ , your hand feels good.”

Bucky tries to stop himself, he really does. But Steve’s got hold of Bucky’s shoulders, gripping tightly with both hands, and his eyes are still closed. He starts rocking into Bucky’s hand, tiny little sounds– barely more than puffs of air– start panting out of his mouth, and Bucky is fascinated. He keeps rubbing, varying the pressure and the angle, and Steve moans and starts to shake within seconds.

“Oh, that’s it,” Bucky tells him, tightening his wrist and tracing the angle of Steve's cock with the edge of his thumb. “God, you’re gorgeous, Stevie. Lips always were so damned perfect. You said it’s been a whole month since I had you. When I see you like this, I believe it. Come on, Stevie. Lemme see you. Give it to me, doll. Come on. Give it u–” 

Steve interrupts with a sharp groan. He shakes harder as the front of his pants gets hot and then hotter and then starts to feel damp. 

“That’s it, doll.” Bucky holds his arm and hand rigid, letting Steve work himself through the last of his shudders at his own speed. “Oh, look at you. Beautiful. That was beautiful.”

Steve rocks forward one last time and then takes a slow breath. He opens his eyes, eyelids a little out of sync, and grins crookedly at Bucky. He looks lazy and satisfied, and Bucky kisses him, just because. 

“You’re so pretty when you do that,” he says, reaching up to brush Steve’s hair off his damp forehead. “So, so pretty, Stevie. Pretty as any girl I’ve ever been with, even though you don’t look much like a girl.”

Stevie gives Bucky a _look_ , all dazed and flattered and almost shy, and Bucky feels like he's just won a prize. He pulls Steve in and kisses him again, keeping it soft, but letting his lips linger against Steve’s for a few long breaths.

“So what was the thing you needed to tell me?” Bucky kisses him again, opening his eyes when he realizes that they’ve drifted shut. “And you never did tell me how long I have you for this time.”

“Shit.” Steve pulls out of Bucky’s arm so fast that Bucky’s left trying to nuzzle air for a second. “No, Buck, it’s…. This is _important_. It’s… So Tony got a message through to me.”

“Stark’s kid.” Bucky doesn’t mean it come out quite as flat as it does. But, while Steve might be willing to forgive and forget after their little, er, _disagreement_ , Bucky’s not sure he’ll ever be able to entirely forgive the guy. Going after Bucky was one thing, but turning on Steve…

To be fair, some of that was Steve’s fault. He should have stayed out of it. If he hadn’t come bulling into Bucky’s place in Romania, Bucky could’ve gotten away. If Steve hadn’t gone wading in when Stark’s kid was trying to kill Bucky, maybe it all would’ve been over. Bucky could have taken that as his punishment and found redemption in having someone he’d hurt taking him out. 

But, of course, that hadn’t happened.

Steve decided to rescue Bucky– again. And then Steve needed rescuing. Again. And then it was just a giant shit-show that led to _everyone_ getting hurt. Everyone nearly dying. And Bucky losing his arm. 

He should probably send flowers or chocolates or something to Stark’s kid for that, someday. No murder arm: still a good thing.

But then the guy’d turned on Steve, looked like he was trying to _kill_ Steve. Bucky is willing to pay for his own crimes, but he will never, _never_ let anyone take it out on Stevie. Not on his watch. Not as long as he has the strength to fight. Doesn’t matter that Steve’s big enough to fight his own battles. If Steve is fighting, Bucky _needs_ to be beside him. Defending him. Helping him. Occasionally using his nearly indestructible body as a battering ram. Whatever it takes to win the fight and keep Steve alive.

“Buck.” Steve is giving him that pinch-lipped, pained face again. “Come on. You _have_ to let it go. He apologized for trying to kill you. Wants to make it up to you.”

Bucky thinks about it, wondering what Stark’s kid could _ever_ do for him.  
“So why’d he contact you and not me,” Bucky says. He leans against the wall and wishes he had a second arm so he could fold them both across his chest. Hiding behind one isn’t nearly as effective at holding himself together. He still tries, gripping hard on his own ribs. “And what could he _possibly_ offer me that I’d want?”

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it slowly out through his nose, obviously trying to avoid arguing. Bucky tries not to be disappointed; he could really use a fight right now. His nerves are suddenly wound to the screaming point, and all the sexual tension he’d been feeling has faded into a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“He knew I’d be able to find you.” Steve inches closer, one hand half-reaching for Bucky before he drops it, and Bucky refuses to admit that he feels a knife-like flare of hurt at the lack of contact. Steve doesn’t notice, though, and just keeps on talking. He’s using his reasonable voice, and Bucky _hates_ it. Has always hated it. _He’s_ supposed to be the calm one, thank you very much; Steve is the one that’s supposed to be talked down and gentled. “And Buck, I think you really need to talk to him. He’s got...He’s figured out a way– he’s pretty sure, at least– to undo what the Russians did to you. To take away your trigger. To give you…”

He trails off and just looks at Bucky, all earnest eyes, Duty, and Justice.

“My freedom,” Bucky finishes Steve’s sentence, barely able to force out the jagged whisper. “He could...he thinks he can… I’d be… _normal_ again?”

“Well,” Steve does touch Bucky this time, cupping the side of his face with one big, warm palm. “He can’t work miracles, Buck. I’m afraid he’d just make you the way you were before. And _no one_ would call that ‘normal.’”

For once in his entire damn life, Steve has managed to say _exactly_ the right thing, and Bucky steps toward him. Steve meets him halfway, and Bucky kisses him. He tastes salt, and he’s not sure if it’s from his own tears or if Steve is crying, too. Doesn’t matter, because they’re both laughing, grinning much too hard to do much more than bump their lips and noses and occasionally their teeth together. Bucky thinks it might be the best kiss he’s ever had. He squeezes Steve’s hip, and Steve tangles his hands in Bucky’s hair, and they can’t let go of each other, and then Bucky buries his face against the side of Steve’s neck and just lets it all go.

He starts crying and heads quickly into actual sobbing, leaving tears and probably snot all over the shoulder of Steve’s too-tight button-up shirt. Instead of cringing away, though, Steve just holds on harder, one hand squeezed up tight in Bucky’s hair while the other rubs soothingly down his back. He’s saying something, probably just the random, soothing nonsense that he’d say to anyone that was upset, but Bucky can’t understand a word of it. He’s got more than a lifetime of tears built up, and, now that he’s started, he can’t stop them from coming out.

He’s crying because of his lost friends and his long-dead family. He’s crying for the men he served with, both those who didn’t make it back and those that did, carrying the scars and memories. He cries over the world that HYDRA tore apart, that _he_ helped HYDRA to rip up. For the people that died at his hands, and the people he destroyed without killing. For all the lies that led to so much wanton destruction and death.

He eventually gets around to crying for himself, for the years he lost and the things he did. For the torture he endured and the ruin of his body. For the lost limb and how much _less_ he is without it. Not the metal arm– _that_ he’s mostly relieved to be rid of. But the loss of his flesh and blood arm and the way his humanity was ripped out when it was replaced. For the way he Believed in those times when he was sent out to kill. He runs out of air and sound, but he can’t stop the tears. He pushes himself harder into Steve’s solid chest and lets them run down his face to wet Steve’s neck. He thinks he might be crying for the years Steve was lost in the ice, when Bucky could have saved him. _Should_ have rescued him. If he’d only been able to rip his mind free from the Words and from the repeated brain reprogramming from HYDRA. If only he’d known that Steve might still be out there.

He’s not sure what’s left for him to cry over, but, now that he’s started, he’s not sure he’ll ever stop. His breath catches in painful hiccups, and Steve just keeps holding on hard, still murmuring in Bucky’s ear, his voice shaking and tear-drenched, too. 

“I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so, so sorry you went through all of that.” Steve kisses Bucky’s earlobe, nuzzling at the side of his face. “I wish I could go back and stop it all from happening. I wish I’d let the world go to hell and gone back for you when I could. I wish I’d taken you far away when your number came up. I wish I’d be able to stop it all. I...I wish I’d told you back then how much I l...loved you. Needed you. How much you meant to me.”

Bucky wants to tell him that it’s _not_ his fault, that he’d have been the Soldier so much sooner if Steve hadn’t come for him in that stinking prison of the HYDRA base. He wants to tell Steve how much it meant to him that he had those months of grace by Steve’s side, when he fought with and for Captain America. He wants to say something– _anything_ – to explain to Steve that it’s okay, it’s all okay now. He can’t get enough breath for a speech, though, so he pushes out what words he can.

“Love you, Stevie,” he mumbles, words slurred by the way he starts biting up the edge of Steve’s sharp jaw. “Love you. Love you. I love you.”

*****

Steve’s pretty sure both of his lungs have completely deflated. He remembers dreaming of those words falling from Bucky’s gorgeous, pouty lips, but he never thought he’d actually get them. And he _knows_ Bucky doesn’t mean “love” the way Steve used to wish he did, but he also knows that Bucky _does_ love him. Still, it’s hard to remind his libido that the teeth scratching at the thin skin beneath his ear and the words Bucky is still repeating aren’t actually connected. Steve _knows_ they’re not, because Bucky said so after the first time they...they had sex on the couch. And in the bed. And then in the shower later. And then again on the sofa.

And he _really_ needs to stop thinking about that, or he’ll drag Bucky down and have him right there on the floor.

“Love you. Love you, Stevie.” Buck just keeps saying it, and every time it stabs straight into Steve’s heart. He gets both of his hands tangled into Buck’s long hair for control and smashes their lips together, just trying to make those words stop. He can’t hear them. Not right now with his heart so flayed from Bucky’s grief and the weight of hope he’s been carrying. Not to mention while he’s wearing the proof that Bucky at least _wants_ him drying in his underwear.

Bucky makes a wounded sound, small and sad and desperate, and then he’s suddenly clawing at the front of Steve’s pants.

“No. Buck…” Steve pulls him in by the shoulders and squeezes, trapping Bucky’s arms between their bodies. “Buck. Stop!”

Bucky goes still so quickly it’s like he’s back in cryofreeze. Steve holds him close with one arm and tips his chin up with his free hand.

“Come on, Buck.” He wishes he could use pet names and terms of endearment as easily as Bucky does, but Steve knows he’s just not made that way. “It’s okay. It’s _okay_! I’m right here, Buck. Always right here. ‘Til the end of the line, just like we both promised.”

There’s a long still pause, and then Bucky pushes himself free and turns away, rubbing his hand over his face. Steve wants to draw him back and kiss him so badly he’s shaking with it, but he can see the wall Buck’s put up between them, and he has no idea how to get around it. 

“I need a shower and clean pants.” Steve forces his tone to stay light, even. “You should come with me.”

Bucky sucks in a huge breath, shoulders rising and falling, and then he shakes back his hair and nods. Steve still can’t tell if it’s okay to touch, but he reaches out to brush the back of Bucky’s neck with his fingertips. Bucky glances back and smiles; it’s crooked and watery, but still believably Bucky. 

“Okay, Steve.” He bobs his head in a nod and then turns and slides easily into Steve’s arms as if he hadn’t been on the verge of collapse seconds before. 

Steve _hates_ how easily Bucky can hide from him. How easily Bucky has _always_ hidden his emotions, even from Steve. Sometimes it doesn’t work as well as Bucky hopes, but even on those occasions, Steve can only tell _that_ Bucky’s hiding something and not what it is. Maybe he just hates that Bucky can do it while Steve himself can’t; Bucky’s always read Steve like an open book.

It’s not particularly fair. 

Still. It’s familiar and easier than trying to hold Bucky and his lifetime of grief in his arms. Even Captain America’s arms aren’t strong enough to carry all of that. Steve kisses Bucky’s lips while they’re so close, and Bucky returns it, soft and comfortable. They have this: in the middle of everything changing, everything collapsing around them, at least they’ve found one good thing that could change. At least Steve has found the one thing he can offer Bucky that no one else in the world can. 

He knows he has to keep his _actual_ thoughts on the matter to himself, he can’t _ever_ let on that he’s genuinely in love with Bucky. That he has been since...forever. It’s enough to know that Bucky loves him back the same as ever he did. It’s enough that they have this new, fascinating physical intimacy between them. It’s _enough_.

If Bucky’s body is all he gets for his own, he’ll take it and cherish every moment.

*****

Bucky has himself together by the time the water is hot. One good thing about Steve and his emotional awareness being slightly lower than absent: he doesn’t ask Bucky to talk about feelings or anything painful like that. He just accepts that Bucky’s brain is wherever Bucky’s brain is and goes along for the ride. 

Maybe he should find one more thing to forgive Steve for. Another fight Steve didn’t walk away from. Another bloody nose that ruined one of Bucky’s hankies. Another time that Steve’s tiny face and pretty lips confused the hell out of Bucky, made him snappish. Made him go out looking for a girl with a reputation and warm arms (among other things).

Speaking of Steve’s face and pretty lips…

They’re _right there_ , and Bucky’s tired of thinking and tired of feeling and tired of being tired. He turns in Steve’s arms, letting the stream of hot water grease the friction of their chests rubbing together. Steve squeaks– absolutely _squeaks_ – and Bucky reaches up to twist his fingers in Steve’s hair, yanking hard as he forces Steve’s head back to let him bite Steve’s throat. Steve moans, loud and deep, and Bucky feels himself plumping up in interest.

“You gonna fuck me, Buck?” Steve’s voice comes out rough and breathless, and both of his hands twitch against Bucky’s shoulders, his ribs, his hips, like he can’t decide what to grab. “I want you, Buck. Want you so goddamned badly, and I just…”

He trails off with a helpless whine when Bucky pushes him back against the wall and bites his way down Steve’s chest to his belly as he slowly sinks to his knees. Bucky knows what he wants, but he doesn’t know how to go about asking for it. He _does_ know that he’s not done listening to Steve talk like that. May _never_ be done. He remembered Steve’s mouth and the ridiculous speeches that used to fall out of it. Almost the first thing he _did_ remember when he remembered Steve. Even knowing all of that, remembering the way Steve talked himself into fights, Bucky never would have expected the kind of filth that pours off of Steve’s tongue, whipping them both into a sexual frenzy.

“That’s it, Bucky. Oh, Jesus, your mouth.” Steve twists his fingers through the ends of Bucky’s hair and the sharpness of the tug makes Bucky even hotter under his skin. “Feels so good, best thing I’ve ever felt, second only to your prick in my ass. God, the way you look with your lips all stretched– oh, fuck!– all stretched around me. How deep you think you can take it, Buck? You gonna choke yourself on it? On me?”

Bucky backs away to pant, so turned on he can’t see straight. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he wants and he needs and he just...he just…

“Stevie, _please!_ ” Bucky leans his face against Steve’s thigh and starts pulling on his own cock, desperate for relief. “I need...God, I need something, doll!”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Steve growls and pins Bucky to the floor, both of them stretched on the water-warmed tile, and Bucky’s not sure how they got there. He wraps one leg over Steve’s hip and rocks up to rub against the firmness of Steve’s stomach just to get a little more friction. 

“Want you to...you said you’d...Stevie, please.” Bucky’s begging, and he knows what he’s begging for, but he doesn’t know how to say it. 

_There’s this place inside– all men have it– that being touched feels like fire and electricity and every good thing that’s ever happened to you, all at once. Next time, Buck, next time I’ll reach right up in you, find that place for you, show you how good it can be,_ Steve had said. He’d _promised_ , and Bucky wants.

“Touch me, Stevie,” he whispers against Steve’s ear while Steve busies himself biting a tender bruise into the skin over the wing of Bucky’s ruined collarbone. “Inside. Please, Stevie, just like you said you would.”

Everything stills again, but instead of being followed by the sudden onslaught of Steve’s passion, Bucky finds himself cradled in Steve’s arms and kissed, slow and deep and tender.

“If that’s what you…” Steve chokes out the words. His eyes are closed, and the water is spraying on the back of his head, streaming over his face. “If you want that, I will. God, Buck, I can’t believe you–” He cuts himself off by kissing Bucky again, and then he carefully gets to his feet, pulling Bucky up after him. “Not here, though. I want better lube than water. Want to get in there, so deep. So, so deep. Oh _Buck_!” His voice cracks on Bucky’s name, and Bucky pulls him close to kiss him again, just a quick peck for reassurance.

“Anyway you wanna, Stevie.” He smiles and tangles their fingers together. “Anywhere you wanna. Just...just _hurry_.”

*****

“Look at you,” Steve whispers reverently. “You’re...you’re gorgeous, Buck.”

And he _is_ , spread across the wide bed. His face is flushed, wet hair sticking to his temples and cheekbones. He’s got one foot planted on the bed, spreading himself wide for Steve’s gaze. He keeps moving his hips, just restless little shifts, and Steve’s mouth waters at the way it makes his prick dance across his belly, leaving damp trails that shine, even as the water from the shower dries on his skin.

“Come _on_ , Stevie.”

The nickname still makes Steve’s stomach clench. If anyone else in the world _dared_ to call him that, he’d probably punch them. But from Bucky, it’s as tender as an endearment.

“Please, doll,” Bucky reaches up with his one hand, and Steve catches his fingers, pulling them up to his own lips. He kisses each fingertip reverently. “Come on, you promised.”

“I did.” Steve barely recognizes his own voice, it comes out so cracked open. He’s on fire from the inside. “And I will. I _will_ , Buck. Just…”

He can’t explain himself. 

_I need to look at this a minute longer so that I can draw it later. Draw_ you _. Need to lock this in my memory just in case you hate this and I never get it again. In case I never see you so wanting, so open, so beautiful._

He climbs further onto the bed, kneeling between Bucky’s splayed thighs and leans down to kiss Bucky’s fascinatingly pouty mouth. Bucky makes a sound, grumpy and frustrated, even as he kisses back, and Steve laughs against his lips.

“Impatient.” He scoots lower and presses a kiss to Bucky’s stomach, just above his navel. 

“Do you know how old I am?” Bucky is petulant, and Steve laughs again even as he licks along the sharp jut of Bucky’s hipbone. “I’m _old_ , Stevie. And I’m not getting any younger here.”

He keeps grumbling, and Steve pushes his thighs wider and cups his hands under Bucky’s hips. All complaints cut off in a long, deep growl when Steve hefts Bucky’s ass higher and licks across his hole. It’s a _gorgeous_ sound, so Steve does it again, savoring the musky taste of Bucky. He inhales, pulling as much of Bucky’s scent into his lungs as he can, wondering if he can somehow lock that breath in place, keep it forever.

“How does that feel so good?” Bucky’s arm is flung wide, his hand knotted in the colorful spread of the bed. “Where did you even– Oh, doll! Shit! Shitshitshit!”

Steve pushes again with his tongue, but Bucky’s still tight-furled and tense, so Steve goes back to licking in broad, wet swaths. Bucky falls right back into cursing, hand unclenching from the bedding and flying up to pull at his own hair. 

“I could...I could...From just that, Stevie! So...Goddamn! Oh, fuck!”

Bucky’s body begins to open for him, so Steve shifts until he has one arm wrapped tightly below Bucky’s hips, holding him high for easy access. He slides his other hand up underneath his own chin and begins alternating pressure with the point of his tongue and with one finger. Bucky thrashes and moans, pulling at the bedding and his own hair and Steve’s hair and on his own cock a time or two. His heels beat out a restless rhythm of pleasure against Steve’s shoulder blades with every lick and kiss. He’s _amazing_ like this, broken open and spilling curses and prayers with every breath. Steve’s breath hitches, and he hopes he doesn’t cry, but he feels like he’s choking around the heaviness in his chest. 

To distract himself, he carefully lowers Bucky’s hips to the bed and stretches his own back.

“No, Stevie!” Bucky’s voice hitches. “Please, you said you would. _Please!_ You promised you’d–”

He cuts off on another shout as Steve leans over to suck down his cock while he presses one finger against Bucky’s entrance. Bucky shouts again when he relaxes and opens and Steve’s finger slides in past the first knuckle. He’s so goddamned _tight_ that Steve moans, imagining this heat and pressure around his cock.

“Stopstop!” Bucky yanks hard on Steve’s hair. “Just my ass, Steve. Oh shit, doll, just my ass or I’m going to...I want more first. You gotta gimme more.”

Bucky’s going to kill him. Steve has found the thing he is absolutely incapable of surviving. Bullets and freezing and half drowning and explosions and losing his mother and Bucky and Peggy, and _this_ is what will kill him:

Bucky begging and nearly sobbing with want, greedily demanding that Steve put more of himself _inside Bucky’s body._

And _Damn!_ What a wonderful way to go!

Steve sits up and kisses Bucky’s knee. 

“Hold on, Buck.” He kisses Bucky’s knee again, just because he needs to have his lips against _some part_ of Bucky’s skin. “I’ll be right back, and then I’ll give you more. I _promise_.”

Bucky makes a soft noise, half sob and half hiccup, when Steve’s finger slides free, and Steve kisses his knee one more time. He wants to pull Buck into his arms and offer reassurance, but he’s also desperate to get them back to where they were. Move them both on further. So he just dives for his bag in the corner and quickly draws out the bottle of slick. When he holds it up, Bucky bites his lip around a wicked grin and nods.

“Think you can work me up to taking you?” he asks, some of his usual swagger managing to reassert itself around the lost, desperate look in his eyes. “Think you c-can–” he stutters and catches his breath hard– “can make love to me?”

Steve’s mouth is suddenly bone dry, and he can’t answer. His own eyes feel wet and he blinks hard, sucking in a deep breath. He quickly flings himself back onto the bed and leans down into Bucky’s tight, one-armed embrace, kissing him hard. There’s nothing in the world he’s ever wanted more than to _make love_ to Bucky, and he wonders if that’s really what this is. Steve _knows_ it is for him, but he’s too afraid of the answer to ask Bucky what he really means. 

It’s enough to be invited to take and give and be with Bucky. More than enough. 

It’s _everything_.

*****

Something starts to nag at Bucky about the time Steve gets up to get the lubricant. He can just tell that Steve’s started thinking, and that is _always_ a dangerous thing. He suspects that he knows what Steve’s got on his mind, and he wishes he could just come right out and _ask_.

Seriously, though, how the hell would _that_ conversation go? 

_So this whole thing means an awful lot to you, doesn’t it, Stevie. You’re not just trying to blow off some steam with me, are you. This is about me and it’s about you, and it’s about how much...how much_ everything _there is built up between us. And it’s okay, if ya love me, because I love you, too. Even if it’s not that way, it’s still_ okay _. Because I’ll always love you more’n anybody, and I promise I’ll try not to hurt you._

But then Steve is back and his lips are soft and his breath is hot against Bucky’s face, and nothing matters quite as much as getting Steve’s searching, probing finger back inside him _right now_. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t seem inclined to make him wait, and he rolls Bucky over onto his stomach with gentle, shaking hands, and scoots back down the bed. 

The return of Steve’s tongue between his cheeks makes him shout, and he hitches one leg higher, trying to give Steve all the room he needs. The first swipe of a slick finger across Bucky’s hole is cold enough to make him squawk, and Steve laughs, breath puffing hot across Bucky’s thighs. Bucky cries out again when Steve pushes his finger back inside. It’s _strange_ , is the thing, but a very, very good strange. It’s waking up nerves Bucky never suspected he _had_ , and it’s so, so exciting. 

Bucky can’t breathe, sucking in air in short, sharp puffs and letting it back out in explosive grunts and moans that he tries to muffle in the pillow that he’s pulled down to hug against his own face. 

“No, Buck, please,” Steve lifts his face from where he’s been licking around the incursion of his finger. “I want to hear you. If you like it, if you don’t. I need to...I need it to...I want to know if it’s good for you.”

“If you stop, I will fucking kill you, Rogers,” Bucky grates out around clenched teeth. As if in retaliation, Steve backs his finger up and pushes in with two, slow and careful and stretching just hard enough to burn. Bucky finds himself instinctively bearing down against the push, and suddenly Steve’s fingers feel _so incredibly deep_. 

Steve gasps, and twitches, and something races up Bucky’s spine that makes him bite his lips around a shriek.

“There it is,” Steve croons, and that same electric shock jolts through Bucky’s body a second time. He thinks it feels like fucking, but...backwards. And it's so goddamned good that he can’t stop himself from making all _kinds_ of noises. “Told you I’d find it. Told you it’d feel so, so good. If you meant it, if you really want me to fuck you, I’ll make sure to hit that spot every time while you’re stretched around me. Oh god, you’ll feel so good when you come around my cock.”

Bucky thinks he’s in the throes of orgasm, but nothing is coming out except a constant wet stream that soaks the bed beneath his hips and belly, and the sensation goes on. And on. And _on_ , and Steve is still stroking inside him, and Bucky is still shouting and moaning and they can probably hear him in New York. And _still_ he’s shaking and twitching, and everything feels so good that he’s _sure_ he’s about to pass out. 

Steve relents all at once, shifting until he’s just barely rubbing the pads of his fingers against Bucky’s inner walls. It’s still _good_ , but it’s less excruciatingly pleasurable, and Bucky finds that he can breathe. He takes a few shaky breaths, and then Steve, devious bastard that he is, makes everything _more_ again. Bucky figures he’s decided to wedge another finger in there, because the burning stretch is back, and then Steve is back to lighting him up inside, almost before Bucky’s gotten use to the fullness. The bedspread is drenched under Bucky’s hips, even though he hasn’t _actually_ come yet, and every time he moves, the friction and drag of the wet fabric borders on painful. 

“Doll,” he gasps, trying and failing to get his knees pushed underneath him. “Oh, Stevie, please, I gotta...my cock is…please, Steve. Please!”

He doesn’t know how to say what he needs. Isn’t even entirely sure _what_ he needs, for that matter. He just knows that it’s starting to get a little uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want _anything_ to stop the pleasure that’s rattling through his body. But clever Steve figures it out and he pulls his hand away and rolls Bucky over in one smooth movement. He grabs Bucky’s pillow, lifting Bucky’s hips easily with one hand to stuff it under his ass. 

“Goddamn, I wish you could see yourself,” Steve tells him, wrapping his still-slick fingers around Bucky’s prick. “You look wrecked. Lips so red, so fucking perfectly red. Just the way they looked when you came home after a night out with some dame. Always wanted to just bite your mouth back then. Just sink my teeth in and suck on you. Always wondered how you’d taste.” 

He stretches up the length of Bucky’s body, tucking himself into Bucky’s single-armed hold, and Bucky sighs in bliss when Steve kisses him. They rest, tangled together, just kissing and holding for a long time. Well, as long as Bucky can stand it, but he quickly starts to get impatient again. He rolls slightly, looping one leg over Steve’s hip. Steve laughs against Bucky’s lips and slides his hand down Bucky’s back, following the curve of Bucky’s waist and backside. Bucky starts panting before Steve’s fingers even touch low, where Bucky’s so sensitive.

“Mmm, you’ve got a greedy ass,” Steve tells him, voice dropping another octave. Bucky shivers, and he’s not sure if it’s from Steve’s touch or the way the bass rumble rattles against his chest. “Already trying to catch my fingers. So puffy. Soft. So easy to slip back inside.”

He pushes in slightly, and Bucky throws his head back and groans. Steve bites his throat, teeth sharp on the thin skin. 

“You think you’re ready to take me?” Steve licks over the bruise, soothing the sting with his tongue. “I’m a bit more than the three fingers you had in there before, so it might be easier if you roll back over, stick that tight ass up for me to work my way into.”

Bucky _really_ doesn’t want to know where Steve picked up his filthy mouth, but he is also really, _really_ glad that Steve did. His words are as inflammatory as his touch, his kisses, that thing he was doing with his tongue a few minutes before. Bucky kisses him hard to shut him up for a minute. He needs a second to get himself under control so that he doesn’t lose it before he even has Steve all the way inside him. 

“Come on,” Steve sits up and pats Bucky’s thigh. “Roll for me. Lemme inside.”

“Can you...can we...Can’t you just…” Bucky reaches up and traces the side of Steve’s face. Along the smoothness of his cheek, down the sharpness of his jaw. He brushes his fingertips across Steve’s full bottom lip. “I want to see you,” he says finally. “When you...when you’re inside me.”

Steve’s eyes are positively wild, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat that’s half bliss and half pain.

“Buck, you can’t…” He buries his face in the side of Bucky’s neck and holds on hard enough to make Bucky’s ribs creak. “When you say things like that, I start to…” He trails off with another soft moan. “When you do, I start to think...start to hope…”

“It’s okay, Stevie.” Now Bucky knows he’s right, but this isn’t the time to examine Steve’s long-buried feelings for him and whether or not it’s reciprocated. “Later, doll. We’ll talk about it later, but right now I need...I need you.”

Steve pushes himself up, broad shoulders acting as a barrier between him and all the threats and all their history. Bucky’s resented those shoulders in the past. Resented them for being wide and strong and able to support the world. He hated how much Steve didn’t need him, after the serum: Captain America didn’t need a protector. Now, though, Bucky can see through the cracks, and he’s starting to get the idea that, while Cap is perfectly fine on his own, _Steve_ actually does need him. He needed Bucky around in the war to do the ugly jobs, to keep Steve from dirtying his hands or his convictions. When Steve found Bucky– brainwashed and lost inside the Winter Soldier– he needed the moral certitude of his rescue mission. And now, lying in the cradle of Bucky’s hips, naked and flawless and gorgeously turned-on, Steve needs Bucky to care for him, care about him.

Steve needs Bucky to love him.

And, God help him, Bucky _does_. After everything, after all that Bucky has lost, after what little he’s regained, he’s at least absolutely _positive_ that this is a thing he knows:

James Buchanan Barnes loves Steven Grant Rogers with all the fervency his battered soul can muster. It’s not a warm and fuzzy kind of love. It’s not soft and romantic. It’s solid and it’s true, and it might be the thing that ends them both, but Bucky knows he can’t run away from it again. Doesn’t matter who is after him in the end, he can’t run without Steve. Might mean he gets caught someday. Might mean he loses everything. 

As long as Steve still loves him and he still loves Steve, there’s not much else that matters, though. Not after everything. 

Bucky’s body tells his brain to shut it as Steve lifts Bucky’s leg to rest on one of those golden shoulders. Steve’s eyes are dark, wild, pupils blown wide with lust, but he’s steady as he takes himself in hand and lines up.

“I’ll go slow,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. He doesn’t look up, eyes apparently fixed on the point where’s he preparing to join with Bucky. “Keep breathing, okay?”

Bucky nods, and sucks in a huge breath that’s punched out of him as soon as Steve breaches his body. His back arches, and he throws his one hand over his head, fingers searching for anything to hold on to. He bumps the carved headboard with his knuckles, and he quickly twists his hand, latching onto the first knotted lump he finds. 

It’s sharp and intense and borderline painful as Steve presses in, and Bucky _loves_ it. He wraps his free leg around Steve’s hip to pull him in closer, and Steve makes that joyful-pained sound again. He sinks in fast the last few inches and carefully lowers Bucky’s leg from his bicep. Bucky tucks that one around Steve’s waist and writhes, trying to draw out the burn of the stretch. Steve puts both hands over his face, body tight and trembling, and Bucky can feel him shaking. 

He can feel it _inside his body_ , and it’s amazing and wonderful, and he knows he’ll never get enough of this. He thinks maybe he should demand they do it this way every time. Then he thinks of how it felt to be sheathed in Steve’s ass, surrounded by his heat. He remembers the bliss on Steve’s face, the greedy way he ground down into Bucky’s lap. Bucky had loved that, too. So maybe his obsession is less about being penetrated than it is about Steve being the other person involved when there’s Bucky and penetration both happening at once.

He’s not even making sense to himself anymore, and he tries to shut his brain off and just _feel_ for now. It’s hard to stop thinking when Steve’s flushed from his hair to his hips, when he’s making tiny whines with every breath. When Bucky thinks he’s sunshine and happiness and all good things rolled up in one and he’s _actually fucking Bucky’s ass._ It’s a shock to his system and it’s like coming home, and it’s the best thing that’s happened to Bucky in seventy years.

Steve drops his hands to Bucky's hips, and his eyes search Bucky’s face, so obviously cracked open that he can’t hide that he’s looking for signs of rejection. Bucky would laugh at him, but he’s _got a cock in his ass_ , and it’s attracting most of his attention at the moment.

“You gonna move, Stevie?” Bucky rolls his hips up as much as he can: it isn’t far, given how deeply Steve is buried inside him. 

“ _Shit_!” Steve closes his eyes and shakes. “Gimme a minute. Fuck, but you’re tight, Buck.”

“‘S because no one else’s ever been there,” Bucky tells him. He wriggles again, and Steve drops down over him, biting at the side of his neck. The shift in angle sends another of those waves of pure pleasure up Bucky’s spine, and his mouth starts to run away with him. “No one but you, Stevie. Only ever for you. Promise that, doll. ‘S just you. Never gonna let anyone else.”

Steve growls out a noise that sounds like a sob, and he wraps both arms around Bucky’s body and starts to move. It’s _intense_ , and Bucky shouts again and pushes his fingers into Steve’s hair, yanking hard. The pace is punishing from the beginning, and Bucky thinks that _this_ is what his body was made for: for Steve to use, to bring Steve pleasure, to experience pleasure right along with Steve. He can’t speak anymore, not really, at least not anything that makes sense. Steve’s name and a constant litany of praise and curses spill from Bucky’s lips. He claws at Steve’s back, searching for a handhold in the storm of _yesgoodwantmorefuck_ that is threatening to swallow him whole.

Bucky thinks Steve might be crying, but the slick-damp against his neck could be sweat or could be tears of his own. He’s got a mouthful of Steve’s hair, but it doesn’t stop him from crying out, panting, whimpering, being as loud as he wants to be. Steve _said_ he liked hearing Bucky, that he wanted to hear if Bucky liked it. Well, Bucky doesn’t like it. He _loves_ it! Loves the burn and stretch and overwhelming sensation of Steve rubbing over that hot button inside his ass. He loves having Steve wordless and crying out in pleasure against his neck. He loves, more than anything, being held in this place of electricity and fire and pleasure by Steve and with Steve. And, really, he doesn’t see any good reason to hold back.

“Fuck me, Stevie,” Bucky says, low and rough, the cadence of his words all wrong as his breath is interrupted by sharp, deep thrusts. “Come on, doll. Give it to me. I want it. Want to feel you. Goddamn, Stevie! You gonna spill in me? Mark me all up inside? Make me wet with you, slick with you?”

“Buck,” Steve moans his name, and he squeezes his arms tighter. He changes his thrusts, using more force and less speed, and it seems to give him enough breath back to start talking. Bucky half wishes Steve didn’t, because every word tightens the vice around his heart. “Oh, Goddamn, Buck! ‘M gonna...You’re gonna make me...Feel so good. So tight. So hot! Please, Buck, you gotta…’M gonna, and I want you first...Go on, sweet.”

And Bucky does, arm and legs tightening around Steve, convulsing as he spills. 

*****

Bucky’s shudders shake Steve off the ledge, and Steve pushes in hard as his own shout rips his throat raw. He can’t catch his breath after, and he starts sobbing, burying his face against the side of Bucky’s neck. He’s shaking, and he can’t breathe, and he _can’t stop crying_. But Bucky just slides his fingers through Steve’s hair and squeezes the back of his neck and hushes him. 

“Hey now, Stevie.” Bucky kisses his hair and temple. “Come on, doll. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” 

Steve takes three shaking breaths and finally manages to get himself under control enough to push himself up to kiss Bucky’s soft lips. Bucky sighs happily and wiggles, and then he makes a gurgling kind of disgusted sound as Steve softens and slips free.

“Well, _that’s_ different,” Buck says, making a face. Steve huffs a soft laugh and kisses the tip of his nose.

“Yeah, from this side, too.” Steve rolls off of Bucky and gathers him close. His cheeks heat, and he’s afraid he’s blushing. Bucky confirms his suspicions when he tilts in to kiss the apple of Steve’s cheek.

“Whatcha mean, doll?” Bucky is lazy after orgasm, movements slow and uncoordinated, voice a sleepy drawl. Steve adores him this way. 

“I’ve never gone in bare before.” Steve clears his throat and glances away. “I mean, not without a condom, ya know?”

Bucky just looks at him with wide, warm eyes, lips curled upward at the edges in seemingly unconscious happiness. He chuckles warmly.

“Glad I have something new to offer you, at least.” He laughs again, wry but genuinely amused, too. “Thought I was the only one having a learning experience here.”

Steve’s heart gives another of those weird twitches, and he kisses Bucky as hard and deeply as he can. Bucky makes happy little sounds into the kiss, the human-created equivalent of purrs, and Steve wants to swallow them up, taste them, hold them in his own throat forever. He finally breaks away, breathless and grinning.

“Absolutely every damn thing about this with you is new to me, Buck.” He sinks down onto the bed, still tangled up in Bucky’s embrace. “So incredibly new and so, so good.”

And it _is_ new. Steve hasn’t lived like a monk, but he’s never gotten to linger in kissing and being kissed by someone he’s really loved before. He’s cared about his past partners, of course. But the only spark related to the electricity that jolts through him when Bucky touches him came from Peggy. Steve’s positive it would have grown into something just as intense as he feels for Bucky, had they gotten their chance. But they didn’t, and he didn’t, and now he can’t wonder what he missed. He’s got _Bucky_ , alive and warm and feeling so, so good, and he never thought he’d get even that much.

Bucky rumbles another of those happy sounds and runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, catching on tangles and sweat-matted snarls.

“So it’s like this,” Bucky says, sleepy and slow. “I love you, okay? And it’s maybe not...not like you do. But I love you. For real and all. Just the same as always, okay? There’s not gonna be anyone I could ever love more. So maybe it’s not...not what you want, yeah? But you have it, whatever I can do. It’s yours.”

“I know, Buck.” Steve kisses the bare swell of Bucky’s chest with reverent lips. His heart is doing that thing again, and Steve can’t tell if it’s happiness or sadness or both all mixed up together. Seems like most of his life has been that way. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“‘At’s good, Stevie,” Bucky chuckles and kisses Steve’s forehead again. “Because you know I can’t. But...anyway. Love you.”

“I l...love you, too.” Steve pushes himself up and kisses Bucky’s lips, just one soft, tender press. “And now I’m going to get cleaned up and I’ll bring you back a washcloth.”

He takes his time in the bathroom, washing with soap to make certain he’s cleaned all over. He wants another round after they sleep, and he suspects Bucky’ll be too tender to do it the same way again. He hopes he isn’t just using Bucky: for sex; for the release; to keep himself from thinking too hard about everything else. He also hopes he’s not still in love with Bucky out of habit. It doesn’t _feel_ like that, but God knows, Steve’s never been particularly good at analyzing his own feelings. He’s always had Bucky to do it for him.

He finishes drying himself off and gets two warm, wet washcloths to take back to Bucky. Bucky rumbles a complaint when Steve rolls him onto his stomach to wipe him down. The puffy redness and shining trails of Steve leaking from him stirs up the heat in Steve’s belly again, and he can’t help but lean down to lick when he’s done with the cleaning. Bucky gurgles out a cry and pushes his knees under himself. Steve pats the small of his back gently as he sits up.

“No.” Bucky glares over his shoulder. “No. You do _not_ get to start that and then just...quit.”

“Buck, I don’t...I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Bucky plants his hand on the bed and pushes up so he can look down at his own belly. 

“My cock is saying that _nothing_ hurts here, Stevie.” 

Steve makes himself look, and feels his face heating. Even after what they just did, Bucky’s already growing hard, plumping up and bobbing in the air. His own prick immediately begins to respond in kind, and Steve leans forward to use his tongue some more. Not like he knows what to say, anyway. Bucky chokes out another strangled cry of pleasure and face-plants back into the bed. 

Apparently “later” meant “now,” and far be it from Steve to deny Bucky something he so clearly wants. He mentally shrugs and lets go of everything except pleasuring his Bucky.

*****

“You know we can’t just keep doing this _all_ the time, right?” Bucky’s voice is half muffled by Steve’s chest. “I mean, I’m not going to complain if we keep it going for a few days, but eventually we’ll probably have to get out of this bed.”

“To change the sheets, if nothing else,” Steve agrees. “But ‘m not moving right now.”

Bucky hums thoughtfully and then shoves, getting himself partially upright, at least enough to flop to one side. Steve cradles his head as he lands, and they smile at each other, a little sex-drunk and a lot worn out. They’d tried more than a few positions during the second go: Bucky on his hand and knees; Bucky hanging over the side of the bed, knees on the mattress, hand on the floor (that would have ended in disaster, but Steve got a foot on the floor and his hands under Bucky’s hips, and it worked out _very_ well for several minutes); against the wall; over a table; on the floor. And then they’d made it back to the bed, and Bucky had thrown Steve down and climbed on top of him. _That_ was by _far_ his favorite. He could control the depth and direction to make it feel so, _so_ good, and he also had his hand free to touch Steve’s face and his chest, to stroke over his soft blond hair, and to press and tweak at Steve’s nipples until he’d cried out and begged Bucky to finish him. In retaliation, Bucky had sat down hard and stroked himself ruthlessly until he came all over Steve’s chest. Apparently the contractions from his orgasm had been enough for Steve, because his eyes had rolled halfway up in his head, and he screamed his way through his own release.

All in all, it was pretty damned good.

But they really _did_ need to get up and find food and maybe have a serious talk about Stark’s kid and what he thought he could do for Bucky’s brain. Shower, food, talk. Then maybe another round with their mutual super-recovery.

Halfway through lunch, Bucky decides that talking is overrated and it can happen any time. The way Steve keeps looking at him has his skin prickling all over, and they should probably deal with that before they try to get into anything serious. Two bites of sandwich later, Bucky _also_ decides that eating is an activity that can be delayed. He drops his meal back onto the plate and stands up, pulling his borrowed t-shirt over his head. By the time he claws his way free, Steve’s already gotten his pants off and is chewing fast, cheeks bulged out like a chipmunk. Bucky watches him struggle out of his shirt and fight down his mouthful, and then they’re racing in opposite directions– Steve going to get the lube so he can get ready and Bucky heading toward the chair he’d had indecent thoughts about earlier.

*****

Steve closes his eyes as he sinks down onto Bucky’s prick. It’s even better than he remembers it being, thick and hot inside him, stretching everything _just so_. Bucky kisses his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelashes, and then his lips, and Steve clutches harder at his shoulders and shakes, fighting the urge to clench down hard all over. Bucky shifts in the chair, pressing forward in a way that makes Steve’s breath stutter. He writhes against Bucky’s chest, grunting at the friction of Bucky’s belly against his own cock. He wants a minute to catch his breath and he wants to give in to his body’s urge to move, to fuck himself on Bucky, to make them both ache.

Bucky’s sweating already, slick and glistening, shaking like he’s fighting for control. He keeps running his hand up the back of Steve’s arm, over his shoulder, down his back. His fingers spasm against Steve’s ass, nails raking hot and sharp across the skin, and then he starts back at Steve’s wrist again. 

“God, you look so good like that, Stevie.” 

Steve opens his eyes and finds Bucky looking at him, just _looking_ , eyes bright and open. There are no shadows in his gaze for once. No Soldier, no fall, no anything but Bucky, and his face is _glowing_. Steve has a sudden, wild urge to pull himself off and go for his sketch pad. He’s never seen Bucky so beautiful, and his heart just _aches_ with it. He can’t look away from Bucky looking at him, and so they sit there, frozen, mid-congress, just...looking. 

“I… I love you.” Steve still can’t say it with the ease Bucky does. Maybe he never will get it out without a stutter, but Bucky’s half-smile grows a bit warmer, and he catches the back of Steve’s neck and pulls him close enough to kiss. It’s tender, soft. Lovemaking more than fucking. Bucky releases his mouth with a soft smack and a blissful sigh. He leans back into the curve of the chair and rubs his hand up Steve’s thigh.

“So get to work, Captain,” he drawls, throwing his hand over his head and letting the chair cradle his body. “I want to see how bad you want it, yeah?”

“Oh fuck!” The curse punches free of Steve’s mouth as his resolve to go slowly, to draw things out melts away. He plants his feet on the seat on either side of Bucky’s hips, grabs the back of the chair, and starts to move. 

Bucky just keeps watching him, eyes half-lidded, lips red and swollen, teeth white where he keeps pulling his bottom lip between them. Steve shifts and then shifts and then shifts again until every thrust feels like being hit by a bolt from Thor’s hammer. Bucky grins, wolfish and joyful as he watches Steve start to fall apart, and then Steve has to trust to his memories of watching Bucky come, because his eyes fall shut as he works himself right over the edge, shouting as he spills onto Bucky’s lean, muscular stomach.

*****

Bucky whispers in Steve's ear until he comes back from whatever Nirvana he vanished into with his orgasm. He lets himself say all the soft words he always reserved for the girls that were his lovers in the years before the war. All the pretty things he'd whisper to his dancing partners, silky phrases about lips and eyes and how it feels to hold them close. It's almost terrifying, how desperately me means them now. Steve is perfection and passion, grace and warmth, the Sun eclipsing the light from all past partners. If this is what falling in love looks like, _feels_ like, Bucky almost wishes he could experience it when he's not balls-deep in Steve's heat. 

He holds on tighter, willing himself to keep feeling this way. He knows from past experience that it won't stay; when they pull apart and away, he'll go back to ordinary Bucky who never feels quite this deeply. Steve will slide back into his place as friend and confidant, as close as a brother, as vital as air. 

Bucky's still hard, pressed so deeply into Steve. He's not sure how, since watching Steve shake and shout his way through orgasm is hotter than anything in the world. Steve's breathing is slowly returning to normal, and Bucky kisses his hair, his temple, his neck and shoulder, trying to decide how he wants to finish himself. On the one hand, he really wants to stay where he is, to leave his spend inside Steve's body. To mark him like, apparently, no one else has ever gotten to. Although maybe Steve only meant that _he_ had never gone without a condom. 

The thought makes Bucky ache somewhere under his ribs, and he grips the meat of Steve's backside hard and tight, vicious possessiveness welling up. Steve grunts at the squeeze and retaliates by pushing himself out of his slump. He leans in to bite Bucky's bottom lip, teeth sharp enough to hurt. 

“How do you want me, Buck?” His voice is still hoarse from shouting, and Bucky grins: he can fuck Steve into a wreck faster than the serum can heal him. “I can get you off like this--” he rolls his hips, and Bucky moans a little-- “or I could bend over the back of the chair and let you back in, let you just have me, use me, _fuck_ me. Would you like that, Buck? To have me at your mercy? To just make me take it? To make me take _you_? Because I'll give you that, give you me. You could put me on my knees--” Steve pulls his long legs back into the chair, again kneeling over Bucky's lap. The movement of him makes Bucky writhe, huffing out another small moan. “I'd let you just fuck my face, my throat. You can do anything. _I'll_ do anything. Just, please Bucky. Please let me make it good for you.”

It all sounds like heaven to Bucky, and he can’t decide what he wants. Thankfully, Steve– pushy, demanding, beautiful Steve– decides for him. He grabs Bucky’s hair and then slides his hands to the back of the chair again, tugging sharply at Bucky’s scalp as he does. The pain zings through Bucky’s body, making him throb inside Steve’s ass. Steve pulls his knees up, planting his feet on the leather of the chair seat and uses the considerable power of his arms to lift himself up a few inches and then slam back down. Bucky _keens_ at the friction and the heat, at the way Steve’s muscles ripple around him, over him. 

“That’s it, babe.” 

It’s the first endearment Steve has ever used, and Bucky grabs his hip and pinches hard even as he thrusts up into Steve’s tight ass. Steve has set an excruciatingly slow pace, and Bucky tries to pull him down faster. Steve has the leverage, though, and Bucky can’t make him budge. 

“You’ll get what I give you,” Steve growls at him, and Bucky cries out again, wordlessly caught between physical pleasure and the scorching heat of Steve's dirty mouth. “I think you can come like _this_ –” Steve slams back hard into Bucky’s lap. “I’ll go slow and steady, and you’ll still get there. You’ll still spill yourself all _over_ inside me. Make me yours. Just yours, babe.”

Everything whites out in an instant, static taking over Bucky’s vision, his hearing, his very _skin_. He eventually comes to with Steve holding him close, laughing, quite possibly _at_ him. He’d protest the laughter, but all he can manage is a half-hearted attempt to swat at Steve’s thigh. Steve just kisses his face and laughs some more.

*****

Buck's mouth is trying to pout, but he's smiling too much. It's an adorably mixed up expression, and Steve can't keep own his lips off Bucky's face. He also can't stop the delight that's bubbling up inside and spilling over as laughter. He really _needs_ to, though, or Bucky's going to actually hit him soon. Steve finally stifles himself by the simple expedient of pushing in close enough to capture the full curve of Bucky's lip between both of his own. Bucky sinks back against the chair, pulling Steve with him, and they both hiss as their most over-sensitive skin slips against each other. 

Bucky's going soft inside him, and Steve fights to keep from clenching down. He wishes they could just stay like this, bodies joined, mouths moving softly together for hours. He's never felt anything quite as exhilarating, quite as...as _profound_ as the warmth in his chest and his groin when he’s so close to Bucky, when he’s _connected_ to Bucky.

“How do you do this, Stevie?” Bucky pulls back from the kiss, eyes still closed, dark lashes fanning across his cheeks. “How do you make me feel so...so…” He trails off helplessly and moves unerringly back to Steve’s lips.

It’s a good thing, too, since Steve can’t answer that question. He’s never found a reason for it in his lifetime, but he still knows exactly what Buck means. It’s rare for him to find someone that resonates so deeply inside him. It’s only happened two other times, one of which never became anything more, and the other one might have, but then Steve saw Bucky, saw Bucky lost and alone and _used_ , and everything else had vanished. 

Oh, Steve had tried. He’d tried to forget about his teenaged fantasies of Bucky’s wet mouth and slender body beside him in the bed they’d shared a million times as kids. He’d wrapped himself in another welcoming body, another hot mouth. The education of a lifetime with another man. 

And then Sam had kissed him, middle of the night after an intense round of sex, held him close, and told Steve that he understood. That he knew what Bucky meant. That he would back away and let Steve focus on finding his friend. Steve had cried, when he was alone in the steel grey light before sunrise, and he wasn’t sure if it was from relief or agony or loss– loss of what he had, loss of what he wanted, loss of, well, everything. 

Settled into Bucky’s embrace, breathing in the tang of sex and the musk of Bucky’s skin, Steve can’t regret his past losses. Other than Peggy, but that’s an old hurt, familiar as his asthma used to be. He’s somehow come out the other side of something like hell and found Bucky for _real_. And it might not be exactly the way he used to dream about, but it’s more than enough, and so much bigger than he ever thought it could be.

“We should finish lunch,” he whispers against Bucky’s lips, and Bucky chuckles and grumbles and slowly pushes Steve away.

*****

They manage not to have sex again all the way through eating and cleaning up and finding their way back to the sitting room or whatever it is. Hell, Bucky’s never been one for fancy descriptions. Whatever it’s called, they’re lying on the couch, Bucky draped over Steve’s body, feeling very like those pictures he’s seen of giant, spotted jungle cats on branches. He wishes he could purr, with the way Steve’s running his fingers through Bucky’s hair. Over and over and over. Tugging at the ends occasionally. It’s heaven.

“So tell me about T-Tony and what he thinks he can do for my brain.” Bucky scoots down, until he can rest his hand in the center of Steve’s massive chest and prop his chin on his wrist. 

Steve eagerly launches into a torrent of technobabble that Bucky can barely follow– _he_ didn’t have the advantage of living with an engineer for several years, after all– but he does his best to follow along. He only interrupts when he finds out he’s got to have a _thing_ on his head, playing around with the electrons in his brain. 

“Hang on,” he rasps out, throat and mouth completely dry. “Gimme a minute to process that part.”

He’s told Steve about the programming, the freezing and unfreezing, going out on missions. He’s never said anything about how HYDRA programmed the Soldier, though, never described the agony of having his brain fried, over and over, all memories vanishing in white-hot flashes of pain behind his eyes and between his ears. The original programming and the loss of self under The Words was easier, less excruciating. Steve doesn’t need to know that sometimes Bucky wakes in the night still tasting the rubber bite-guard that sometimes wasn’t enough to keep him from chewing off bits of his cheeks and his tongue. He wishes that the Soviets had handed over the book when they’d dealt The Winter Soldier away. He’s certain they kept it as a fail-safe, in case he was ever sent after his original masters, but it would have been so much easier to slip into oblivion from a soft string of nonsense instead of through electrical shocks that lit his entire nervous system up with pain. 

Steve looks at him a little strangely, but he falls silent. He does keep petting Bucky’s head, though, and Bucky kisses the bare skin of Steve’s stomach. They didn’t bother getting dressed, and Bucky wonders if now is the time to try to get Steve going again, before he asks any questions. For once, though, Steve just waits, and Bucky closes his eyes, pressing his nose against Steve’s skin and just breathing him in. Steve will watch over him, so Bucky can take a minute to get himself together. 

“We can finish this later, if you need to.” Steve’s voice is soft and deep, and Bucky smiles into his ribs and kisses whatever is below his lips. 

“Mmmno,” he slurs, kissing another inch of super-heated Steve-skin. “Keep going. ‘M okay.”

There’s a long beat of silence, and Bucky kisses Steve again, aiming for a place just a centimeter from Steve’s nipple. Steve makes a soft humming sound, half-whine and all hungry, and Bucky laughs and bites him.

“We’re _not_ starting that again yet, doll.” 

Steve grumbles something about _assassins who tease_ and goes back to describing Tony’s...whatever it is. All Bucky can get is that he’ll get to relive– and rewrite– his memories. But without actually removing the original memory. It’s something about the way things will process when he’s back in that place. The upside is that it won’t hurt. Not hurting is good. The bad news is that it might not work. In fact, if things go the _wrong_ way, Bucky might accidentally get triggered again. 

“You’d be there?” Bucky hates how small and frightened his voice sounds. Apparently Steve does, too, because he sits up, hefting all of his own bulk as well as Bucky’s through the strength of his abs alone. Bucky’d be _incredibly_ turned on if he wasn’t more than a bit afraid of Steve’s answer.

“Of course I’ll be there.” Steve tips Bucky’s face up and and kisses his bottom lip, sucking gently on it until it stops quivering with potential tears. “Not the end of the line yet, Buck.”

Bucky sighs and loops his arm around Steve’s neck holding on tightly. He tucks his face against Steve’s neck, nose pushing in against the sensitive spot just under Steve’s right ear.

“I need some time to think about it.” 

Steve nods and says nothing, but his fingers are nearly bruising as he squeezes Bucky hard. They just sit there together, holding and being held, and Bucky loves the security of it. No matter what path he chooses, he knows Steve’ll go with him. Knowing that makes everything seem a little less new, a little less frightening, and a little less dangerous. 

Maybe Bucky’s glad Steve never learned to back down, after all. 

*****

“Stevie?”

Bucky’s voice, soft and drawling and obviously on the edge of sleep, pulls Steve out of the half-doze he’s fallen into. He’s warm under Bucky’s muscle, comfortable on the low-slung couch, and happy with his best guy in his arms. He kisses Bucky’s tangled hair, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Myeah, Bucks?” Steve can’t resist squeezing with his left hand where it’s wrapped over one muscular globe of Bucky’s ass. 

“I think I’m hard again.”

Steve snickers and kisses Bucky’s head again.

“Stop laughing at me.” Buck sounds like he’s sulking, and Steve blinks himself fully awake, wanting to see if Buck looks as adorably bitchy as he sounds.

He does.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Steve’s going to quickly be in the same boat with the way Bucky’s staring at him. Bucky’s pupils are growing quickly, the dark taking over the clear blue, and it’s breathtaking, the way he’s smiling.

“I want you to take me to bed and do wicked things with me.” Bucky pushes himself up, hand planted firmly in the middle of Steve’s chest. His palm is hot against Steve’s skin, and Steve can’t help shivering when he thinks of how hot that palm was against his dick when they first got to their rooms. 

“I dunno, Buck.” Steve folds his hands behind his head to keep himself from reaching out to pull Bucky’s hair; Bucky responds well to hair-pulling, and Steve’s not ready to give in yet. “Seems like Captain America is supposed to avoid doing anything _wicked_.”

“That’s not what you were saying when you had three fingers up my ass earlier.” Bucky leans down and kisses him, hard and fast, and then rolls away before Steve can pull him down. He looks over his shoulder, his spine a fluid line above the roundness of his backside. “Not what you said when you fucked me off the bed and halfway across the bedroom.”

Steve’s fully hard now, hips moving in restless little shifts that he can’t manage to squash down. He's not used to...to _lusting_ like this, to wanting someone's body, wanting instead of simply needing an orgasm. He wonders if this is how other people feel all of the time; if so, he understands why everyone is obsessed with sex. God knows, _he_ is already becoming obsessed with the way Bucky feels inside, feels inside him, the way Bucky's face transforms when he comes, turning back into the boy Steve knew before the war. He could get addicted to that, to seeing _his_ Bucky again. He thinks he could also get addicted to the half-curses and whimpers that drip from Bucky’s lips when he’s caught up in bliss. He’s never felt so _proud_ of a lover before, of their ability to...to get off. Of his own ability to get them there. 

“Stevie?” Bucky’s stopped in the doorway, looking at Steve, a pinch between his eyebrows. “You okay?”

Steve rolls to his feet and walks across the room, running a hand down his own chest, down his abs, down to his erection. Bucky watches his fingers and licks his lips. 

“Just got lost in my head for a minute,” Steve says, and Bucky meets his eyes with a bright grin.

“Shouldn’t do that, Stevie. You might never make it back out.”

“If you’re waiting for me,” Steve tries to make his voice as light and teasing as Bucky’s, but even he can hear how much he means the words, “I’ll _always_ make it back out.”

Bucky’s face goes through a series of expressions, maybe shy or confused, possibly a little worried. Steve wonders if he’ll ever learn to read Buck the way Buck reads him. 

“Come on, Stevie.” Bucky’s eyebrows and lips have finally settled on _generally happy_ , and he holds his hand out to Steve. “Take me to bed and make love to me while you say all those pretty words.”

Steve can feel himself blushing, cheeks hot and feverish, but he takes Bucky’s fingers in his own and leads the way down the hall.

*****

Bucky hadn’t really _meant_ the _make love to me_ part of what he’d said, but Steve had taken him at his word, anyway. He’d spread Bucky across the bed and kissed every inch of his body. He’d even spent time running his lips around the metal still embedded in Bucky’s shoulder, kissing the scars and the ugly puckered seam between skin and steel. Bucky had turned his face away, trying to pretend like there weren’t tears burning under his eyelids, sneaking out and trickling down his cheeks. And Steve, stubborn an ass as ever, just kept going, whispering words like _I adore you_ and _most beautiful I’ve ever known_. When he’d finally slid between Bucky’s legs, again using his tongue to open Bucky up for his fingers and, eventually, his cock, Bucky had been outright sobbing, barely able to suck in enough breath to stay conscious. 

Steve’s back had bowed with the force of his orgasm almost as soon as he slid into Bucky’s body, and it’d been the most gorgeous thing Bucky’d ever seen: someone as pretty as Steve so lost in pleasure that he hadn’t been able to hold on for anything. After kissing his apology for finishing so soon into Bucky’s lips and chest (and Bucky neither needed or wanted an apology, but he’d gladly accepted the kisses), Steve’s pressed his hand back in, two fingers working deep and gentle inside Bucky’s ass. He’d swallowed Bucky’s cock down, wedging it all the way into his throat (because apparently breathing is something for people who _aren’t_ supersoldiers). 

It hadn't taken long after that.

Bucky’d been the first one to regain the ability to move, so he’d gone to get a warm, damp towel to clean himself off and then carry to the bedroom to carefully wipe Steve down. Steve’d rumbled happily during the cleaning, and Bucky hadn’t been able to resist leaning down to kiss Steve’s hip and then the soft head of his cock. Steve’d given another of those contented little murmurs and been asleep before Bucky’d gotten under the covers with him.

Now he’s lying under about half of Steve’s considerable bulk, a little too hot but far too content to bother making a bid for freedom. He keeps kissing Steve’s hair and the tip of his ear– all he can reach, really– just because he can. It should be weird how badly he wants to press his lips against Steve. He’s not sure why it’s such a compulsion for him, but he’s glad to indulge himself. Steve’s so far under that he’s quit responding, in sounds or goosebumps, and Bucky settles himself more comfortably against the pillows and just pets for a bit.

He’s been trying not to think about an idea he’d first had when he and Steve were heading for Siberia and the other supersoldiers. He didn’t want to discuss it then, when the future was so uncertain. And he’d put it away since then, trying _very hard_ not to consider the implications.

Now, though, draped with Steve’s nearly indestructible body, tucked safely in the walls of a palace that few in the world know exists, guarded by a loyal and hardy army and a man who can all but turn himself into a giant cat with vibranium claws, the idea returns with force. He knows Steve will refuse, will set his jaw and be all… _Captain America_ about it. But Bucky will just have to insist. And, if insisting doesn’t work, he’ll just bring it up again while they’re fucking next. 

That’s probably unfair, but this is _important_ , and he needs Steve’s willing cooperation. 

The only other person in the world he thinks he could trust is T’Challa, but the thought of making himself even weaker in front of the king is truly terrifying. Steve, on the other hand, Bucky trusts without question. Steve would die before giving up Bucky’s secrets, and he’d kill himself before allowing himself to hurt Bucky. And he _needs_ to know the words, be able to recognize them, so he can stop someone else from saying it before they reach the freight car. 

So, decision made, Bucky uses his legs to roll himself, pulling Steve down against his chest and kissing him once more before he lets out a deep sigh and goes to sleep.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s cheeks are flushed red, and his eyes are bright and positively glowing, the blue of them clear and cool like a summer sky. He’s wearing a pair of Steve’s jeans and one of his softest long-sleeved shirts, the empty sleeve tied neatly out of the way. He’s shaved again and brushed his hair back, and he’s incredibly handsome and looks perfectly happy.
> 
> “Hey, Stevie.” Bucky smiles up at him and gestures at the place on his left. Steve quickly goes to sit beside him, and he’s shocked when Bucky leans over and kisses his cheek. “T’Challa’s got some good news for us.”
> 
> “Us?” T’Challa is clearly smiling at the both of them and trying to hide it. Steve feels his cheeks heat at how _knowing_ the king looks. 
> 
> “Of course us.” Bucky shrugs and leans against Steve’s side. “I know Steve worries about it. He worries about everything.”

*****

When Steve finally wakes the next morning, he’s alone, a single island in a sea of bed. He rolls over and finds that Buck’s side of the pillow they’d shared all night is cold, so he gives himself just a few minutes to remember the night before: his sudden wave of longing for Bucky, for having sex with Bucky. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at once. Knowing that even Steve can _want_ like other people do, knowing that he wants Bucky. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to bottle it up again. 

He’s hard to the point of leaking by the time he rolls to his feet to go find where Buck got off to. The first clue is that the bedroom door is closed. The second clue is that, when Steve opens the door, he can hear voices from the main room: Bucky and T’Challa. A visit from T’Challa requires pants, so Steve tells his body to behave itself and starts digging through a dresser drawer for a t-shirt and sweatpants.

It takes another five minutes before Steve’s gone down enough for his pants to look decent. T’Challa’s been talking most of the time, his voice steady and low and just too quiet for even Steve’s ears to pick up. Bucky was using full sentences when Steve first heard him, but he’s faded down to single word answers and all Steve can make out are murmurs of Bucky’s voice, hoarse and cracking. Steve decides that sexual desire is even more inconvenient than he’d first suspected, and he hurries toward the sitting room even before he’s gone fully soft.

“Your Majesty.” Steve’s not even looking at T’Challa when he greets him. He can’t get his eyes off of Bucky’s face.

Bucky’s cheeks are flushed red, and his eyes are bright and positively glowing, the blue of them clear and cool like a summer sky. He’s wearing a pair of Steve’s jeans and one of his softest long-sleeved shirts, the empty sleeve tied neatly out of the way. He’s shaved again and brushed his hair back, and he’s incredibly handsome and looks perfectly happy.

“Hey, Stevie.” Bucky smiles up at him and gestures at the place on his left. Steve quickly goes to sit beside him, and he’s shocked when Bucky leans over and kisses his cheek. “T’Challa’s got some good news for us.”

“Us?” T’Challa is clearly smiling at the both of them and trying to hide it. Steve feels his cheeks heat at how _knowing_ the king looks. 

“Of course us.” Bucky shrugs and leans against Steve’s side. “I know Steve worries about it. He worries about everything.”

Steve is completely lost, and Bucky smiles at him, crooked and warm and so intimate that it catches Steve’s breath. 

“T’Challa’s making me an arm. Prototype for a new project to provide durable prostheses to like, soldiers and athletes and stuff.” Bucky shakes back his hair and straightens his spine. “But mine’ll be special. Vibranium. To keep it strong enough that even the Soldier can use it without damaging it.”

“And to keep it light.” T’Challa leans forward, elbows on his knees. He’s dressed in dark grey slacks and a soft black shirt, a necklace with a single claw hangs around his neck. He’s a beautiful man, and Steve’s fingers itch for a pencil. The responsibility of the kingdom has clearly been resting heavier on his shoulders than it did before, but he’s grown to the challenge. It’s given his always serious face an even more solemn cast, but it makes the easy smile he’s directing at Steve and Bucky even more striking. “Your previous arm weighed too heavily on your spine, and it will to take a long time for you to correct the damage.”

Bucky shrugs, unconcerned. 

“It’ll just be nice to have enough hands to pat my head and rub my tummy again.”

T’Challa raises an eyebrow, and Steve can’t quell the snort-laugh that creeps out.

“And he’s going to request Stark’s info on the brain thing.” Bucky leans harder into Steve’s side. “I want his opinion on the likelihood of it working versus the probability of it triggering the Soldier.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Steve is fervently grateful, and he hopes it comes out in his voice. He’s one hundred percent in favor of _anything_ that can help Bucky, that can give Bucky back a life outside of the precious few stolen hours and days that Steve can be with him. He hates the possibility of obligation that it can put on Buck. The threat that Bucky’s only...with him like _this_ because he can’t go get something else. “I really, I can’t...We can’t…”

“He knows, Stevie,” Bucky says, low and close to Steve’s ear. “I’ve...I tried to tell him how much it means, him helping us.”

“There are too many threats in the world to have so great a warrior locked up,” T’Challa says. Then he snorts a laugh. “That sounds so pretentious, but it’s the truth. And having Sergeant Barnes frozen away means that much of you is, too, Captain Rogers.”

“Yeah it is,” Steve says softly, and his face is probably giving too much away, because Bucky blushes again and glances away, breathing slow and deep.

“Then we’ll expect you both in the lab in five days.” T’Challa starts to stand, and Bucky and Steve both jump quickly to their feet. They both _do_ know how to show respect, contrary to popular belief, _Tony_. “I’ll leave you both to...get back to your morning plans.”

T’Challa manages to leer in a kingly manner, even, and Steve just _knows_ that he’s blushing from his hairline to his navel. Bucky just shoots him a particularly provocative look, and Steve has to fight to keep from smacking him over the head with a throw pillow. Smug jerk. Always too handsome, and always too aware that Steve is and always has been his, heart, mind, and body. T’Challa finally makes it out the door after rounds of goodbyes and thank yous, and Bucky rounds on Steve as soon as the door is closed.

“God, when you walked out here with your dick half-hard, I thought I was going to embarrass myself in front of our host.” He pushes Steve against the nearest wall and kisses him. “How, Stevie? How can I want you so bad? 

Steve opens his mouth to answer and found himself moaning instead. Bucky bites his neck, not even trying to be gentle. He licks over one of the bruises and then blows over the wet skin, raising goosebumps. 

“I like _women_ , Stevie.” He shoves one hand under Steve’s shirt and cups one side of Steve’s chest in his palm. “I like _breasts_.” He clenches down with his fingers, hard enough to hurt, and Steve tosses his head back and moans again. “I like soft skin and gentle curves.” 

“God, Buck!” Steve grabs onto Bucky’s shoulder and tries to hold himself up. His legs are shaking, and he’s not sure if Bucky is trying to make love to him or punishing him for the fact that he wants to. 

“So why is it that you get me going so much more than anyone else ever has?” Bucky rocks in close, and Steve can feel how hard he is, how _hot_ he is. “Every time I look at you I think about what it feels like to kiss you, to touch you, to _fuck_ you. Start wanting it. Wanting you. Wanting you in my ass.”

Steve’s given up on trying to answer. He’s pretty sure he can’t speak and think and not come in his pants at the same time, not with the way Bucky’s grinding against him and kissing his neck and throat. He manages to get his hands into Bucky’s hair, and he yanks hard, startling a howl out of Bucky.

“Hngh!” Bucky pushes away, his hand on Steve’s chest slamming Steve back into the wall hard. “Why do I like it when it hurts? I thought I’d had enough hurt to last me forever, but I love when you pull my hair.”

Steve clenches his hands and uses Bucky’s hair to reel him back in for another kiss. He hates the thought of Bucky hurting at all, but he also loves the way hair pulling makes him cry out and pant. 

“I want you, Stevie,” Buck whispers against his lips. “I want you to strip me and hold me down and fuck me.”

“Oh hell yes,” Steve whispers, and he shoves Bucky away again. He gets his hand around Bucky’s wrist to lead him down the hall toward the bedroom, but Bucky shakes him off and pushes in close against Steve’s back, nearly tripping them both.

“Want you to spread me over the bed and just...just do anything you want to me.” Bucky loops his arm around Steve’s waist. “Just...just make me...just turn off my brain for me. Make me just _be_ for a little bit. Make me stop thinking.”

Steve freezes, and Bucky stumbles against his back, jolting them both forward. 

“Buck, no.” Steve turns around slowly and reaches out to gather Bucky in close. How had Steve failed to notice how hard Bucky was shaking? Lust blinded, or something, and that will never do. “Bucky. Buck, come here, baby.” 

Bucky allows himself to pulled in and held, tucking his face into the crook of Steve’s neck. The shaking gets worse, and Steve reaches under the back of his shirt to stroke his skin. 

“I’ll gladly help you shut down for a bit.” He kisses Bucky’s hair and his shoulder, right at the seam of flesh and metal. “I’ll give you anything you ever need or want from me. But, baby, you can’t go into it like this. You just...you have to tell me what you’re thinking. I don’t...I don’t want to hurt you. Or...or make it bad for you. Ya know, for the Soldier.”

Bucky tenses in his arms, and Steve hugs harder.

“Please, Buck.” Steve kisses his hair again. “Don’t ever put me in a position to hurt you. Not again. Please, not ever again.”

They just stand there, tangled together for a long time. Steve petting Bucky’s hair, Bucky shivering in his grip. Finally Bucky pushes away with a sniff and turns toward the kitchenette.

“I could use some breakfast before we start anything,” he says, dragging the back of his wrist across his eyes. “Go make yourself presentable, and I’ll see what I can whip up.”

*****

Bucky’s stirring the eggs by the time Steve comes back out. He accepts Steve’s minty toothpaste-flavored kiss, and pulls the pan off the heat. Steve’s poking around in the fridge, collecting fruit when he turns around, and Bucky watches his ass for a minute before speaking.

“You need to know my trigger words.” 

Steve drops a plum. 

“Wha...Buck?”

Bucky carefully checks that the eggs are no longer runny and pulls them off the burner. He turns around and runs his hand through his hair and then pulls uncomfortably on the bottom of his shirt.

“I _need_ you to know them, Steve.” He puts his hand in his pocket because he can’t figure what else to do with it. “In case...in case they ever come to light again. In case someone else decides to...to set _him_ loose. You can...you can stop him. Me. Anyway, you can just turn right around and change the orders. Keep me from hurting anyone.”

Steve’s silent for a long time, arms still full of fruit, one plum still just sitting on the floor by his foot. He finally heaves a heavy sigh and turns around to carefully set his armload down on the counter, leans down for the wayward plum, and then walks carefully toward Bucky. He runs the backs of his fingers down Bucky’s cheek and cups his jaw gently.

“I hate that...I hate that you can...that I could…” Steve shakes his head and looks down, and Bucky thinks he’s never loved him more than he does right now. “But I can see why someone should have them. And I’d...I’d be honored, Buck. That you trust me that much.”

“First off,” Bucky turns back to grab the pan, dislodging Steve’s grip on his face. “First off, _someone_ needs to know them. Just in case. Second, who _else_ do I have that I can trust? Third, I know you’re not going to ever use them on me for your own gain. You’re the only person in the world I’d ever trusted with that. Now sit your ass down and eat your breakfast.”

Steve sits and eats, but he keeps shooting Bucky worried little glances from under those stupidly long eyelashes of his. Bucky tries to ignore him, but the lump in his throat keeps growing, and it’s becoming a struggle for him to swallow. He finally gives up and throws his fork down on his plate with a bit too much force. 

“тоска ржавые печи рассветом семнадцать доброкачественной девять возвращения домой один грузовой вагон.” He looks hard at Steve as he says it, the string of words to turn off his brain. It doesn’t work for him; he’s tried to take control of their body in the past, but all they are is a string of random words when he says them. “Longing, rusted, furnace, daybreak, seventeen, benign, nine, homecoming, one, freight car. It’s just nonsense, but when someone else says it, it’s like I’m...like I get reset or something. I’m just _gone_. I mean, I can still see out, but everything’s hazy except the mission I’m given. Except my orders.”

“Buck…” Steve’s voice is soft and hurting, and Bucky picks up his coffee and looks away. “Buck, Bucky. I don’t know if I can.”

“You _have_ to, Steve. You have to know them. You have to say them. And we’ve got to know if he’ll respond to it from you.” He clears his throat hard and takes another swallow of the bitter liquid in his cup. “How else can we test if T-Tony’s idea works. We’ve got to have a way to test it. And I don’t...I _won’t_ trust anyone else. You’re the only one who can...who could stop him. Stop me. Please, Steve.”

There’s another long pause, and Bucky can feel Steve watching him, but he doesn’t say anything else. Either Steve is convinced, or Bucky’s just going to have to chant the words at him until he’s certain they’ve stuck.

“Okay, Buck.” Steve reaches over and brushes his fingertips against Bucky’s cheek, sweeping back the fall of his hair. “Okay. But you need to tell me what to do. After you’re...after he’s been triggered. What do I do?”

“Act out your kinky fantasies?” Bucky glances sideways at Steve, trying to grin, but Steve _clearly_ doesn’t find the joke funny. “I dunno, Steve. Order him to take a nap? Sit him down and cut my hair?”

“How do...how do I get you back?”

“Just wait. I’ll come out of it. The longer it’s been between being wiped, the faster it happens.” He shrugs with his good shoulder. “You could try ordering me to be Bucky again. No one’s ever tried that one. Maybe it’ll even work.”

Steve sucks in another big breath and squares his shoulders. 

“Say it again, but slowly.”

Bucky reaches over to squeeze Steve’s hand, and then he scoots his chair around the table to kiss his big dumb face. Steve kisses back tenderly for a minute, and then Bucky straightens his own shoulders and starts teaching.

“тоска ржавые печи рассветом семнадцать доброкачественной девять возвращения домой один грузовой вагон.”

*****

Steve’s got a beer and he’s wishing it was Asguardian booze by the time Bucky stumbles out from the bedroom, sleep rumpled and pale. 

“Did you _seriously_ tell the Winter Soldier to go take a nap?” He slaps his hands on his hips and watches Steve like a hawk watching a bunny. “I mean, _really_?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Steve shrugs and carefully gets up. He wants to go pull Bucky into his arms, kiss his hair and his face and his mouth. Breathe him in and hold him close until he’s _certain_ that it’s his Bucky in there. “You just...he just...It was hard to see. And you just sat there, waiting for me to tell you to do something.”

Bucky starts laughing and crosses the room to fold himself into Steve’s embrace. 

“Creepy Russian assassins make you nervous, doll?” He wraps his arm around Steve’s waist and tucks his face against the hollow of Steve’s throat. “Don’t wanna share a room with a scary murderer?”

“Buck…” It’s not funny. Steve finds the Soldier absolutely terrifying, and not because he’s afraid of what he could do. Seeing Bucky, the person he loves most in the world, utterly blank, no one in there behind his eyes, is the stuff of childhood nightmares. And it’s worse because it’s true. He hates that Bucky can be controlled, and he hated being the one given that control. “I don’t know if I can do that again.”

“You have to, Steve.” Bucky shakes his head vehemently. “You _have_ to. Until I know you have it right. Until I know you can say them when you’re panicking. When you’re dying. I _have_ to know you’re safe from him.”

“I’ll do it.” Steve kisses Bucky’s eyelashes and tastes tears. “I’ll do it for you, but it’s hard, Buck. I just...what if I screw it up?”

“Steve. Stevie. Doll.” Bucky cups the side of Steve’s face and kisses him, just soft little nibbles on Steve’s bottom lip. “You won’t. You can tell me to do anything, and it’s okay. I promise. I want to give you everything when I’m awake, so it’s okay if you slip when I’m under. I _trust_ you.”

Steve has no idea what to say to that, so he says nothing and gathers Bucky in closer, kissing him slow and deep. Bucky pulls back to suggest that they go mess around, but Steve is pretty certain he's never felt less turned on in his life. He leads Bucky over to the couch and turns on the television, needing a little time to get used to the idea that Bucky went away and now he's back. Bucky laughs at him, gently, and then settles in against his side and they watch a couple movies in comfortable silence. 

Eventually Bucky stretches out and tucks his head in Steve's lap. He flops around for a minute like he can't get comfortable and then rolls, pressing his face against Steve's belly. Steve slides his fingers into Bucky's hair, and Bucky hums and snuggles closer. Maybe when the Soldier sleeps, Buck doesn't really rest. Maybe Bucky's just as drained as Steve feels.

Or maybe Bucky's a devious jerk, because he reaches up and pulls on the waist of Steve's sweatpants, nosing into his pubic hair and rumbling out a pleased little purr of a sound. Steve sucks in a hard breath, and it's immediately punched back out of his lungs when Bucky's hand dips into his pants and pulls out his prick, giving it one wet lick.

“Never thought I'd go for this.” Bucky licks again and then sucks the head between his lips like a lollipop. “Didn’t see the appeal before. Kinda fun, though, to feel you getting hard in my mouth.”

Steve opens his mouth, trying to get more air. Bucky grins up at him and then goes back to sucking, fingers rubbing against the shaft in tiny, hot little circles. He bobs his head a couple times, not moving more than an inch, and Steve’s hips try to thrust forward. Since Bucky’s resting on his legs, though, all it does is move them both in tandem.

“You like it, huh?” Bucky sucks hard, just on the head, and Steve’s head drops to the back of the couch. “You like being in my mouth? Tell me, is it as good as being in my ass?”

“Better,” Steve rasps, throat too dry to get much volume. “Makes you shut up.”

“Ohhhh.” Bucky breaths the sound, and the heat of his breath makes Steve twitch between his fingers. “So it’s _that_ way, is it?” His hand keeps going with the maddening massage, and Steve figures he’s about two seconds away from beginning to leak. “You wanna make me stop talking? Wanna make me just...just _take_ it, Stevie? Make me give you want you want?”

Steve’s so hard he aches, and not just from the insides of Bucky’s mouth and his magical fingers. He’s never thought of it that way before, of just pushing someone down and _taking_ , but he has to admit that the...the illicitness of the act turns him on. The thought of owning all of Bucky’s beauty, of possessing the power of his body, the wetness of his mouth, the tightness of his ass, is far more appealing than it has any right to be. It’s so… _wrong_ , and still Steve wants it with a power that terrifies him.

“You could just use the words, Stevie.” Buck reaches further into Steve’s pants and cups his sac with gentle fingers. “Then you could make me do anything you wanted. Make me be entirely under your control.”

Steve feels like a bucket of ice water’s been thrown over his head, and he gasps and starts to go soft. 

“Bucky! No! I wouldn’t…” He shakes his head, fingers tightening into Bucky’s hair. “I couldn’t. Not ever!”

“I _know_ that Stevie.” Bucky braces his hand on Steve’s thigh and sits up. He kisses Steve’s lips quickly. “I know you wouldn’t. This is just for play, yeah. Just...I wanna hear what kind of dirty thoughts you’ve got tucked under that perfect hair.”

Steve sucks in a slow, shaky breath and tells his heartrate to settle back down. 

“But why, Buck?” He gathers Bucky in close and hugs him hard. “Why would you even want to think about that?”

“Steve, a lot of men and women have had control of this body.” Bucky inhales slowly, and Steve can hear the way his breath shakes. “They all used it to do horrible things. To hurt people. To...to _kill_. The Soldier has always been a weapon, and that means I have to go along for the ride. But you, doll, you’d _never_ do that to me. You’d never set me on another person, not when I had no control. I’ll fight for you and by you forever, but I know you’d never _make_ me do it.”

“Of course not, baby.” Steve kisses Bucky’s face and squeezes harder. “Never.”

“So tell me what you’d do to me, if you had control. Tell me what you’d make me do instead. How you’d...how you’d make me feel good. How you’d use _him_ to give you pleasure instead of pain.”

Steve chokes on a sob and pulls Bucky in tighter.

“Can’t...breathe...Stevie...doll…” 

He let’s go just a little bit and then cups the side of Bucky’s face, pulling him into a ferocious kiss. Bucky whimpers and grabs Steve’s bicep, fingers biting in hard.

“Oh, the things I’d make you do, Bucky.” Steve shifts them both until he’s lounging into the corner of the couch. He cups the front of Bucky’s pants, delighted to find him hard and quivering already. “I’d spread you over the bed, make you tip that ass up for me, let my tongue into you.”

Bucky moans and pants harder, and Steve starts rubbing his palm against Bucky’s dick. Bucky’s hips push forward in hungry little thrusts, so Steve keeps going, trying to force his tongue to spit out depraved fantasies, even though he still feels more like sobbing. 

“I’d make you moan for me, baby. Make you scream.” 

Bucky grunts out a soft garbled word that sounds like “Steve” and “yes” trying to escape together. 

“Once I’d gotten you there with just my tongue, I’d use my fingers. Think I could start with three of them?” Steve’s prick is still hanging out the top of his pants, and he’s fully hard, getting harder as Bucky’s side presses against it. Steve isn’t sure if he means the things he’s saying, but he says them anyway, getting more and more into it as Bucky pants against his collarbone, whining and grunting when Steve’s hand gets a particularly good angle. “Stretch you out, that tight little hole of yours. Get a fourth finger in there. Be rubbing on you just right, make you get hard again, even though it’ll start to hurt from it. Just when you think you’re gonna come, I’ll pull back.”

Bucky whines.

“Add a little more slick and see if I can fit my thumb in there with them, yeah?” Steve has heard of that– thank you, internet– but he’s still not convinced it’s actually physically possible. “Think I could push my whole hand into you? Think I could get a fist up you, fill you so full that _everything_ presses onto your prostate? Bet you’d go soft while I did it. Then I’d just have to roll you over and start sucking you until you’re hard again.”

“Yeah, Stevie.” Bucky pants the words out, breathless and broken. His eyes are closed like he’s picturing the whole thing, and his hips are pumping against Steve’s hand in long, steady thrusts. “Yeah, you’d tell me to take it, so I’d have no choice. I’d just do it. Just...just for you.”

“That’s it, Buck. Just like that.” Steve kisses Bucky’s face. He’s so beautiful there, clinging to Steve, flushed and glistening with sweat. His lips are bitten red and swollen, slick and delicious, and Steve can’t help kissing them again. “I’d suck you until you came, swallow down every drop, and then I’d keep fucking you with my hand until you had nothing left, until you’re coming dry and screaming with it.”

Bucky lets out a thin little whine and shakes and shakes, and shakes even harder. His hand clenches tighter around Steve’s arm, and Steve watches how his face transforms; all the lines from the lost years, the violence, the fear, all of them fade away. Bucky’s lashes flutter open, and he whispers Steve’s name, soft and reverent. He sighs and his body gives one last shiver before he goes limp against Steve’s chest. 

Steve wishes he could go for his sketchbook and pencil _right then_ , but he’s got to pet Bucky for a few minutes, gentle him back from their mutual trip into such a messed-up fantasy world. 

“You’re still hard, doll.” Bucky’s voice is drugged and slow. “Was supposed to be for you. Wanted to...to treat you. For what you did earlier. Know it wasn’t easy for you.”

“You did, Buck.” Steve pulls him up and kisses his face, his eyelids, his lips. “You gave me something gorgeous. Your face when you...you’re so beautiful.”

Bucky blushes and tries to duck his head, but, with the way they’re tangled together, he can’t go anywhere.

“Seriously, Buck.” Steve kisses him again, slow and soft. “Best present ever is watching you in bliss.”

“Imma need to go clean up. Change my shorts, at least.” Bucky gives one more kiss before he slowly rolls away, using just his impressive legs to push himself up to standing. “Be back in a few, yeah?”

Steve nods at him and manages to wait until he’s rounded the corner before diving for the sketchbook on a nearby table.

*****

Steve’s wrapped up in his drawing when Bucky comes back out dressed in a fresh pair of soft knit pants. He goes over to the chair Steve’s curled up in– clearly having forgotten that he’s a big supersoldier now and not just a skinny little asthmatic– and leans over the back to kiss his hair. Steve hums a little, but doesn’t actually seem remotely aware of what’s going on. 

 

Bucky’s face is on the page in front of him, half-finished, but easily recognizable. In the drawing, Bucky’s eyes are lidded and heavy, his lips parted on a sigh of bliss, hair tangled and damp with sweat. Bucky feels himself go hot and then cold and then hot again, body uncertain how to react to seeing himself so intimately, so passionately rendered in graphite. 

“You could make him...make me pose for you.” He’s not aware of even thinking it until he hears his own voice. “When I’m under, I mean. That way you’re not violating any ideas of decency you have, and I’m not going to be uncomfortable. Maybe you can even make him pretty or something.”

Steve’s pencil pauses in the shading of Bucky’s cheekbone and he clears his throat. 

“That’s actually a pretty good idea.” He glances up at Bucky and smiles crookedly. “If we have to keep going, at least I won’t...at least I won’t feel like I’m just using you. Not anymore than I always have.” He huffs a laugh, and Bucky leans down to kiss the top of his nose.

Steve unfolds the covers of the notebook and flips back through. Nearly every page holds Bucky’s face. Or his back. Or his shoulders and neck. There are a few sketches of Steve’s other companions and former teammates thrown in, but far more Bucky than anyone else. 

“If you’re sure you’re okay with that–”

Bucky cuts him off.

“Of course I’m okay with it, or I wouldn’t have said it. Now finish your drawing. I need a snack. Or maybe some actual lunch.”

After a day of movies and news, tv shows Steve wants to catch up on, and more drawing and being drawn on the couch, they make love again that night. Steve needs it slow and tender, and that’s how it happens. Bucky holds Steve close enough that they share air while they both thrust into the tight tunnel of one of Steve’s big hands. When Steve comes with a cry, Bucky kisses the sound from his lips and then gasps through his own release, their combined slick smearing over his hips and stomach. Then Steve proves that he’s still got more surprises as he ducks down and licks a stripe up Bucky’s hip. He holds eye contact while he does it again, and Bucky’s hard again by the time his stomach is somewhat clean and shining from Steve’s tongue. 

As if he’s trying to kill Bucky, or maybe to make up for having controlled his brain earlier in the day, Steve stretches Bucky’s legs wide and tucks himself between the spread of his thighs. He gives Bucky one intense stare and then wraps his lips over the head of Bucky’s cock, sucking with intent. Bucky’s pretty sure he stops breathing– he _knows_ he’s stopped breathing– as Steve sucks him ruthlessly, never breaking eye contact. When Bucky comes _again_ , nearly whiting out from the force of it, Steve sucks him dry and then tenderly kisses the trembling muscles of Bucky’s stomach.

“Go to sleep, baby,” Steve whispers, pillowing his head on Bucky’s thigh. 

Bucky drapes his free leg over Steve’s shoulder, and they fall asleep like that, tangled up in each other in an incredibly intimate embrace.

*****

Steve wakes up warm and half-choked by Bucky’s thigh across his chest. He rolls a bit and finds his face pressed into the vee of Bucky’s groin, chin resting against the softness of Bucky’s sac. Somewhere further up the bed, Bucky snickers, shaking the mattress. 

“Enjoying yourself down there?” He clenches his stomach muscles and sits up enough to look down at Steve. “Only you’ve been rubbing your cheek against my leg and humping my ankle for the last half-hour. Like a poorly behaved dog.”

“‘T’s not me,” Steve says, kissing the velvety-smooth shaft of Bucky’s rigid prick. Bucky gasps out a tiny grunt, and Steve opens his lips, letting his tongue trace patterns that make Bucky writhe. “I think this one is all your fault. Keeping me down here like you’re trying to get more out of me.”

“You were there when I went to sleep.” Bucky stretches back and arches his back. “And _you_ were still awake, so you coulda moved if you wanted to.”

“Your leg had me pinned.” Steve rolls to his stomach and bites along the thinnest skin on the inside of Bucky’s thigh, teeth leaving little pink marks with each nip. “Almost like you think I should just stay here for a while.”

“You’d think I’d have fucked the sassy out of you by now, Cap.” Bucky sits all the way up and grabs Steve’s hair, yanking his head up. “Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough.”

“Looks hard enough to me,” Steve says, leering at Bucky’s erection as with as much obvious lasciviousness as he can manage. “Looks hard enough to fuck _something_ out of me.”

He rolls up to his knees and reaches for the lube they’d left on the nightstand the night before. Bucky makes a small sound, and Steve freezes.

“What’s the matter, Buck?” He climbs over Bucky’s leg and sits beside him on the bed, looping one arm around Bucky’s shoulders.

“Nothing. I mean, nothing major.” Bucky shoots him a crooked grin. “Only I have _got_ to piss.”

Steve laughs and grabs a pillow to smack him with, and Bucky rolls, using all his weight to shove Steve down on the bed. 

“I’m going to go take care of that.” He rolls off the bed and grabs the lube, shoving it into Steve’s hand. “You finish what you were about to start before I get back.”

Steve doesn’t waste any time once Bucky’s out of the room. He wants to be ready for Bucky to just slide back in, get their morning fucking out of the way, and then they can go eat breakfast and maybe take a walk outside. Steve’ll pack his sketchbook, and maybe he can convince Bucky to pose for him in the sunlight.

*****

“This is in retaliation for earlier, isn’t it.” Bucky tips his head toward Steve, and Steve ignores him. “I still think we should go try that again.”

Bucky’s shirtless and uncomfortable and quite certain he’s getting a sunburn. Steve’s got him spread out on top of some panther-based bench in the center of a lush tropical garden, back bowed too far backward, braced awkwardly on his one hand. Morning sex had been interrupted by the spectacular destruction of one of the spindly tables in their bedroom. The landing had been hard enough to dull even Steve’s endless libido, and Bucky had apologized and tried to kiss all the bruises better. It might have even turned out okay, except that Bucky couldn’t stop laughing at the poleaxed expression on Steve’s face, even when he was picking splinters out of the back of Steve’s thigh. 

“Maybe we should find something a little sturdier, though,” Bucky concedes. Steve still doesn’t answer. “We could try out this bench, but it’s a little too low, so I think you’d just have to straddle me and go to town, ya know?”

He gives up trying to get a rise of Steve (laughing at his unintentional mental pun), and goes back to basking in the sun, trying to ignore the way his shoulder is straining. 

“So there was this time when I was with the 107,” Bucky says. “Before you got to Europe, Stevie. The guys were all talking about the women they’d bedded. The girls back home, and the girls they’d met along the way. And someone asked me who I missed most having in my bed.”

Steve hums noncommittally, and his pencil never pauses in scratching over the paper.

“I almost said your name, doll.” Bucky shakes his head and laughs softly. “The ess and the tee came out, and I had to call you Stephanie. Told everyone about pretty blue eyes and the prettiest mouth I’d ever seen. About how slender and sweet my little blonde was. About a fireball temper and a the way you draw. I wish...I wish I’d known back then that this was an option. Before I left for the war.” Bucky laughs again. “Can you imagine? Maybe we’d be less...like this. I mean if it wasn’t so damned new.”

Steve glances up and stills for a minute before he goes back to drawing, pencil moving slower now.

“But if we had, you wouldn’t have had Peggy.” Bucky shakes back his hair from where the breeze has pushed it over his eyes. “And _that_ would be a real shame. You loved that dame.”

“Still do,” Steve says softly, and Bucky turns to look at him again. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Never has. Loved you just the same, and her, too.”

“I know.” And Bucky _does_ know. He got over feeling threatened by Peggy years, decades before. Back before he fell. Back when he was still watching the way they looked at each other across crowded rooms. Back when he knew Steve carried Peggy’s picture in his compass, his other polar north. “How would that have even worked, though? You spend half a week in her bed half a week in mine? Sleep alone the other night?”

Steve looks up and grins, bright as the sunlight that’s filtering through the leaves over his head. Figures that Steve’s in the shade and Bucky’s stuck in full sunlight; Bucky just knows he’s going to burn. He hopes the bastardized serum in his veins will take the sting away quickly.

“Maybe I’d have had you both in my bed. Curled up between you every night.” He runs his hand through his hair, thumb leaving a smudge of charcoal on his forehead. 

That smudge nearly catapults Bucky to his feet. It’s so reminiscent of the way Tiny Stevie used to look _all the time_ , art media all over his face and hands. He forces himself to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly and sinking back into the place where he used to let his mind go when Steve insisted on drawing him. 

“I dunno, Buck.” Steve shrugs and goes back to his paper. “Maybe she would’ve understood, if I’d ever been able to tell her. If it’d ever mattered. It didn’t back then, because you weren’t...this wasn’t...I mean…”

“Yeah, Stevie.” Bucky glances over and smiles again. “I do know. And it’s not worth giving into what-ifs now.”

They’re both silent for a long time, and Bucky tries very hard not to think about anything in particular. He closes his eyes to the sun, letting the heat of it bake into his body, into his bones. It’s as if he’s trying to suck up all the sunlight and heat he can get, before he has to get flash-frozen again. He’s nearly drowsing, strained shoulder forgotten in the sleepy noon sun. 

“I’m still glad we have now, though.” Steve’s soft voice startles Bucky, and he opens one eye to see what’s happening. Steve carefully blows the extra charcoal dust off the page and smiles at his work. “And I’m glad you’ve finally learned to sit still for more than five minutes at a time.”

“Hey, I’m a very patient model, thank you very much.” Bucky sits up and arches his back until it pops. “Used all the training I got posing for you when I was sniping for Captain America, punk.”

“Oh.” Steve closes the book and gets to his feet gracefully, as if he hasn’t been hunched over drawing for an hour. “So _that’s_ how I could always find you. You wiggled.”

Bucky gets up and meets him halfway, pulling him in for a kiss.

“I think it’s just my magnetism, pulling you in.” He kisses Steve again, just because he’s there and warm and happy and perfectly kissable. “You never could resist this.”

“You’re right, Buck.” Steve nods solemnly. “Couldn’t resist it to the point that it took me ninety years to actually kiss you.”

“At least we moved beyond that quickly.”

Steve snorts and shakes his head, shoving Bucky away playfully. 

“If you’re angling to try sex on that bench, you’re out of luck.” He scoops up Bucky’s shirt and throws it at him. “But if we go have some lunch, I’ll consider sucking you this afternoon. I mean, if you think that’d be okay.”

“I might be convinced to let you do that.” Bucky tucks his hand in the back pocket of Steve’s jeans and pulls him close. “Maybe.”

“Don’t worry, baby.” Steve slides his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and kisses his cheek. “I promise I won’t try punching you in the prick when you come.”

He ducks away before Bucky can flick him in the ear, and takes off at a run. Bucky chases him all the way across the garden and through half the palace back to the door to their rooms.

*****

Steve wonders, once he’s got Buck naked and lying across their bed, if he’ll ever get tired of this: being naked with Bucky; touching Bucky; having sex. He can’t see how he’ll get bored, since every time he and Bucky join, it brings out new feelings, new emotions, new expressions on Bucky’s beautiful face. Steve leans down to kiss Bucky’s lips, letting his tongue brush the edge of Bucky’s teeth when he gasps at Steve’s finger breaching his body. That’s another reason Steve doesn’t think he’ll ever not want Bucky: he’s so responsive. Sex is something Steve’s done and found satisfying– even exciting, sometimes– but he’s never before felt the urge to do it all for his partner the way he does with Bucky. 

“Jesus, Steve, even _your_ finger isn’t enough.” Bucky’s eyes are closed, hand clenched in the covers like he’s holding onto his composure through that grip alone. “If you’re not gonna give me another, I’m going to take care of it myself.”

Steve keeps up his slow exploration, torn between giving Buck what he wants and demanding that Bucky get on with that, put on a real show. Bucky whines and writhes, reaching down to pull impatiently on his prick. He lets go quickly and reaches down further, tightening his abs to sit up until he can reach Steve’s hand and push his own finger in next to Steve’s. Steve feels a pulse of heat in his groin at the sight of both of their fingers, tangling together as they push into Bucky’s hole. He’s never seen anything so fascinating, and he tries to memorize the play of shadow and light across Bucky’s knuckles as they move.

He wonders if he can get Bucky to pose like this: naked and desperate, pupils dilated with arousal, lips bitten red and swollen from Steve’s kisses. The loss of his arm isn’t a flaw in an otherwise perfect portrait, since nothing about Buck could _ever_ be a flaw. He has a scar just inside his hipbone where he got caught on a chain link fence when they were children, and it’s still just as fascinating now as it was back then. The scar below his navel came from shrapnel in the war, before Steve got there. Before Bucky was taken by HYDRA. Every mark on his body just tells the story of who he is and who he was and what he’s come through.

“Base to Captain America,” Bucky gives Steve his best glare. “Stop staring and start fucking, ya creep.”

“Sorry, Buck.” Steve smiles at him. “I'm enjoying myself here. Can't rush.”

Bucky glares some more and works another finger into himself, hips twisting as he does. Steve feels sweat breaking out on his own upper lip, and he carefully adds another finger.

“Oh ow, shit yes!” Bucky spreads his knees wider, planting one foot against the bed. “Gimme another, Stevie. Open me up wide for you.”

Steve reaches for the lube with his free hand, dumping a shining stream over Bucky's entrance and both of their hands. He catches Bucky's hand and pulls it gently free before pressing in a third finger.

“Not enough, oh fuck it's not enough!” Bucky drops back onto the bed and fists his prick, and Steve's not sure if he's trying to get off or stall an orgasm. “Gimme another, doll!”

Taking a deep breath and holding it, Steve tucks his pinkie against his ring finger and pushes in. The results are spectacular. Bucky arches off the bed, absolutely howling, and Steve uncurls his hand, fucking Bucky's ass with the full width of his palm. Bucky keeps shouting, mostly wordless sounds, but occasionally managing to gasp out “Steve" and “yes" and curses. Steve bends his fingers, and Bucky actually screams as he arches harder and starts coming all across his stomach. 

It's fascinating and beautiful and primal, and Steve locks the sight and sound in his memory, a new painting already taking shape in his mind. 

He won't even need the Soldier to sit for it.

*****

Bucky manages to collect enough of his scattered brain cells to process that Steve looks both very smug and still very hard. He’s got a fist wrapped around himself, and what _feels_ like his entire other arm wedged up Bucky’s ass. It’s the hand up Bucky’s ass that’s causing problems for him. He’s so sensitive, he’s about to cry with every twitch of his over-stretched hole around Steve’s fingers, but he does _not_ want Steve to pull away and leave him empty. 

“Oh, shit, feel so much, doll,” Bucky breathes the words, trying to still the twitching of ass. Steve’s hand shifts and he backs up just a little bit. “Nonononono. Please, don’t leave me empty, Stevie. Oh, fuck, but I’m not done yet. Please, Steve, please don’t–”

“Shhh,” Steve leans forward and cuts Bucky’s pleas off with a fingertip against his lips. He then braces that hand beside Bucky’s face and leans down to kiss his nose, his lips, his chin, each eyelid. “I’m not done with you yet.” He noses in under Bucky’s jaw and licks the side of his neck, raising goosebumps in the wake of his tongue. “I’m going to bury my prick deep inside this greedy, hungry ass of yours. Fuck you until you can’t take it anymore. Fuck you until you’re hard, and then I’m going to get you off again. And then again. Gonna keep going until it’s too much. Until you’re crying from it. And only then will I let go. Gonna mark you up inside. Make sure you know you’re mine.”

“Oh yeah, Stevie, please!” Bucky twists against the sheets, crying out when Steve’s hand moves inside him, gently and tenderly, but still too much. “Give me...give me…” _everything_. He can’t say it, but he means it. He _means_ it this time. Means that he wants Steve forever. Just his alone. Never having to share him. 

It doesn’t work that way, this thing between them. Bucky knows that, but he wants. He’ll put up with Captain America if it means he can have Steve just...always. 

Steve kisses him again, softer than before, and shifts carefully between Bucky’s legs. The withdrawal of his hand and the moment he slides his thick cock inside become a single sensation, just movement and fullness, and Bucky can’t think around the pleasure-pain of his overloaded nerves. With Steve moving inside him, over him, there’s no Soldier and no cold and no fear and no lost years. Everything is drowned under the waves of feeling, of movement, of Steve’s soft murmur of broken words.

“Love you like this, Buck.” Steve’s eyes are closed, and he’s leaning his forehead against Bucky’s, folding him nearly in half as he fucks him slow and deep. “Love watching you...watching you just…. Can’t...can’t get enough of you. Like this or laughing. Need you happy. Want you to know that you’re...you’re just everything, Buck. If I can’t save you, I’ve never done anything that matters.”

Bucky holds on, incapable of answering with anything more than tiny gasps and cries of pleasure. He’s pretty sure he’s hard again, but he can’t tell, because his body is sparking like one ongoing orgasm, and _still_ Steve keeps fucking him. Bucky wonders if this is how it feels to die: pain and pleasure and comfort and need all wrapped up in a single moment. Steve doesn’t seem to have any control left, just slamming into Bucky’s body over and over and saying nothing but a constant litany of Bucky’s name and _yes_ and _love_ , like reciting his rosary as a teen. Bucky wants to stay there, locked together, both of them feeling too much, forever.

But sex has a natural ending, and even the most incredible extended round of making love gets there eventually. 

Steve slams in once. Again. Then he locks his arms around Bucky’s ribs and squeezes as he shouts and grinds in hard. That push is all it takes for Bucky to understand the difference between sex that _feels like_ an orgasm and the actual orgasm that comes after. He thinks he might actually be ripping Steve’s back up with his nails as he holds on and sprays another load between their bellies. Steve shudders again hard, and his cock twitches in Bucky’s ass, forcing another wave of electric shocks up Bucky’s back. 

They stay there, limp and lying together, both of them whimpering with every movement, far longer than they should. Untangling is both painful and disgusting, but Bucky has no idea how they’re going to clean up. God knows _he_ can’t move, and Steve doesn’t seem to be in any better condition, flopped beside him on the bed. Bucky looks over to see Steve’s golden back streaked with four red welts, and he can’t help the shiver of possessive pride he feels. Those marks are _his_. There aren’t many people strong enough to leave such deep cuts with nothing but their nails on Steve’s supersoldier skin. It’s exciting, and– if Bucky had a _hope_ of getting it up again in the next three hours, he would already be hard and ready to pin Steve down and fuck him again.

“Shut up, Bucky.”

“I haven’t said a word, Stevie doll.” Bucky rolls as much as he can and pats Steve’s quivering ass. 

“I can feel the smug from here.” Steve turns his face out of the pillow enough to glare, and Bucky laughs, just a little, but Steve’s face lights up with an answering grin of his own. “Rest now. Shower and clean sheets later.”

An excellent idea, and Bucky rolls further so he can half-melt against Steve’s side. His stomach is sticky and itching, and he can feel a thin trickle down the back of his thigh, and he just can’t be bothered to care. Steve is there and warm and safe and happy, and Bucky thinks he’s got everything he’s ever really wanted, right in that moment. 

He goes to sleep smiling. 

*****

Steve wakes up slowly, feeling warm and safe for a change. He’s not in Stark Tower. He’s not in his apartment in DC or the place he had in New York before the Avengers got together. He’s not sure _where_ he is at first, to be honest, and that’s nothing new. He’s _not_ , however, used to waking up with a heavy weight across his chest and warm air puffing against his shoulder in wuffling snores. 

_Bucky_.

Somehow he’s wiggled around in his sleep until he’s draped entirely across Steve. A sharp edge of his metal shoulder gouges into Steve’s neck, and Bucky’s hand is warm and heavy where it’s resting across Steve’s prick. And Steve’s prick is _noticing_ the firm, calloused grip. Steve wants to thrust up into Bucky’s palm, but that seems a little presumptuous, so he holds still and tries to keep his breathing even. 

Once upon a time, when the world was young and so were they, Bucky could sleep through anything: storms, fights in the hallway outside their apartment, Steve tugging himself off just six inches away on the bed. Now, though, it seems like the slightest change to the air or sounds of a room have him awake and on high alert in seconds. Steve kinda hates it, because he would rather have time to study Bucky’s face when he’s sleeping. He can draw the way Bucky looked at rest before, but he’s still not sure exactly what Bucky looks like in dreams now. He never does get a chance to watch.

Bucky mumbles something, and his fingers flex, and Steve goes from halfway aroused to looking forward to release in seconds. He feels himself bob under Bucky’s palm, and Bucky coughs out a soft laugh. 

“You’re so easy for me, doll.” He curls his fingers again, stroking up the shaft, and then he toys with the head a bit, his touch light and teasing. “Been going hard off and on all night. You about ready to make use of it?”

“You’re doing that on purpose.” Steve can’t get any heat behind the accusation, since Bucky has shifted again until he can rub in long, slow strokes from balls to head and back. It feels amazing, and Steve is left wondering _again_ how he can want so badly when it comes to Buck.

“‘Course I am.” Bucky snorts another little laugh, and Steve wishes he could see Buck’s face. He can _hear_ the smile, and he hasn’t seen Bucky smile enough yet. Not since...since _everything/_. “You think I’m gonna neglect you when you’re all hard and trying to get off in your dreams? You think I’m gonna just...ignore that? No, doll. I’ll take care of you any time I can.”

Steve closes his eyes and just _feels_ for a few minutes, hips flexing up to meet every movement of Bucky’s hand. He forgets for a minute that the sheets they’re tangled in are disgusting, that they’re both wearing the evidence of how intense the sex had gotten the night before. He forgets that Tony wants to work on Bucky’s brain and that T’Challa wants to work on Bucky’s arm. For those few precious minutes, all he thinks about is how _good_ it is to be pinned down by the weight of Bucky’s sleep-warmed body and slowly rubbed toward orgasm. 

And then Bucky stops.

“Nonono!” Steve can’t hold in his protest, his body still flexing rhythmically up toward a palm that isn’t there anymore. “Come _on_ , Buck!”

Bucky plants his hand against Steve’s stomach and pushes himself up. He kisses the tip of Steve’s nose and then rolls away. 

“Come on. I wanna brush my teeth and finish this in the shower.” He pauses at the door and glances over his shoulder, eyes hot and lips red like he was biting them. “So you better bring _that_ –” he nods toward the place where Steve’s prick is bobbing in the air, hard and purple with need– “and the lube and get in here before I’m ready to dry off and get dressed.”

Steve makes it into the bathroom before Bucky’s even done with his teeth. He joins him at the counter, using his own sink to brush his teeth and follows Bucky into the shower stall. He’s got Bucky pinned against the wall and is buried in his ass in under three minutes flat.

Later, a lot later, after they’ve both found release again, after they’ve lazily soaped each other off, after Steve has dropped to his knees and used his tongue to get Bucky going and finished again, they make their way to the kitchen with heavy, sex-drugged steps. Breakfast is mostly silent except for polite requests to pass food and occasional hot looks and tender kisses.

“Say the words again, Stevie,” Bucky says as soon as he’s swallowed his last bite of fruit.

Steve can feel the blood drain from his own cheeks, but he takes a deep breath and does as he’s told. His mouth remembers the form of the words, and the spark in Bucky’s eyes goes out as Steve says the last one.

The shock of going so instantly from the warmth and connection of the morning to the cold-blank of the Soldier hits Steve in the gut, and he clenches his teeth to keep from gagging. He wants to pull Bucky into his arms, but it’s not Bucky, and Steve is still certain that it’s not okay to touch Bucky when he can’t say no. He reaches out hesitantly to touch his fingertips against Bucky’s– _the Soldier’s_ cheek on the way by, and then he hurries into the living room to get his sketchbook. He’ll wait out Bucky’s absence by drawing his face from the night before: alive and warm and burning with sexual pleasure. 

Maybe it’ll be enough to get him through the wait.

He’s on his third fast-sketch when he feels a hand on his arm. He looks up to find the Soldier’s watchful eyes on the page, and he turns it a bit to show it better. Steve wishes he understood Russian as the Soldier says something and then...oh! And then! The corners of his lips curl up, just a fraction, and he carefully slides onto the couch beside Steve, leaving his arm free, and rests his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. Steve goes back to drawing, trying to keep his hand steady, but his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.

“You can hold me.”

The voice is Bucky’s, but it’s lacking in any of Bucky’s intonation. 

“Please, he’d...I’d...Hold me?”

Steve carefully closes his notepad and leans forward to set it reverently on the edge of a low table. He puts his pencil down on top of it and leans back, shaking all over by the time he turns toward Bucky and holds his arm out. Bucky, or the Soldier, or however it works curls into Steve’s embrace and flings his arm across Steve’s stomach. He sighs and relaxes almost instantly, and Steve reaches up with his free hand to stroke over Bucky’s hair. He wants to hold his breath, afraid he’s stepping into a hornet’s nest, but he keeps his breathing even, keeps his body loose. 

Bucky sighs again, and Steve hugs his arm a little tighter around Bucky’s shoulders and breathes a silent prayer of thanksgiving: if the Winter Soldier is allowing himself to be touched, maybe the programming is wearing off on its own. If Bucky can push the Soldier into Steve’s arms, maybe he isn’t so far gone, after all.

They sit in silence, holding and being held, and Steve wishes he knew what the Soldier was thinking.

*****

Two days later, Bucky is sitting in yet another lab in yet _another_ part of T’Challa’s palace, his leftover metal arm pieces hooked up to wires. He’s shirtless, and he’s wondering why the hell it always has to be so _cold_ when someone goes to see a doctor, even if the doctor has a Ph.D instead of an MD. Steve’s across the room, cozy and warm in his hoodie and sweatpants, but he’s sulking. And, Bucky’s not lying to himself: he knows that _he’s_ sulking, too. Has been since the blowup after Bucky slowly trickled back into his own mind to find Steve cuddling with the goddamned Winter Soldier. 

He’d have been okay with Steve fucking him, but something about the snuggling up all cozy on the couch just set Bucky’s teeth on edge. 

_It’s the_ Soldier _, Steve! You don’t just get all wrapped up with a deadly weapon!_

Steve had gone back to his horse-faced indignant look, and Bucky could practically hear him whinny. _You_ asked _me to hold you, Buck. You_ begged _me to. You want I should turn you away next time? Maybe when you’re horny or having another nightmare?_

Worst of it was that Bucky didn’t _actually_ think Steve had done anything wrong. It was kinda nice to see the frosted distance fade from his own vision to be replaced with Steve’s face, so very very close to his own. It might have even been okay, if Steve hadn’t had his eyes closed and been drifting so far in his own mind that he might have been napping. _Napping_. With an armload of pissed off assassin. _Not_ your brightest choice, Stevie.

No, Steve hadn’t been wrong, but it’d scared Bucky, to know that Steve would let his guard down like that. It had almost felt like that battle on the Helicarrier again, like watching Steve drop his shield and drop his guard and just _wait_ for Bucky to kill him. Bucky’s blood had run cold at first, and then, when Steve threatened to take away the comfort of his body, Bucky had gone from terrified to furious in seconds. He’d stomped off to go for a walk, considered checking back into the cryolabs, and then decided that he’d just go make sure Steve suffered until the appointment about Bucky’s possible new arm.

Of course, Steve hadn’t been the only one to suffer, as they’d crawled into opposite sides of the enormous bed, tucking into crisp, clean sheets that Steve had apparently changed while Bucky was walking off his anger. The bed hadn’t smelled like _them_ , and the miles of mattress between them had been an ocean too deep to cross. So Bucky hadn’t slept that night. 

He probably wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, before the appointment. Between his own nerves about having his arm toyed with again and the ache under his ribs from the lack of Steve’s touch and smile and voice, Bucky hadn’t dared to let himself dream. A nightmare wouldn’t help anything. He’d crawled out of bed, still out of sorts and under orders not to eat breakfast to be greeted with a soft kiss and a hasty retreat from Steve. He hadn’t seen Steve again until they’d both arrived at the door to the lab one minute before the appointed time. 

Damned supersoldiers and their damned perfect internal clocks.

“Run the connection test.” One of the lab coats across the room is scowling at a computer screen. “One way first, then slowly back it the other.”

Steve isn’t speaking, and Bucky figures he’s going to have to be the bigger man here, because, to be perfectly honest, he’s freezing and Steve’s warm hands against his skin would be wonderful. He opens his mouth to say something, maybe apologize or perhaps just crack a joke, and then Bucky feels his hand– his _missing_ hand– clench into a fist, and the half-finished prosthetic across the room folds all the fingers in. Instead of words of apology or love, what comes out is:

“Holy shit!”

He straightens up and opens his hand, watching as the arm across the room does the same. He touches each finger to his thumb in rapid succession, and the hand does the same, no lag at all. There are no phantom sensations, because the hand is _actually moving_ right along with Bucky’s brain. 

“It has biofeedback already wired in,” one of the women in a white coat says, her smile flashing like lightning across her dark face. “Someone touch the hand.”

Steve is there before anyone else can make a move, and Bucky feels his breath snag in his throat as he feels the heat and weight of Steve’s palm fold around his own. The lab is suddenly swimming as tears fill Bucky’s eyes, and Steve looks over at him, and Bucky doesn’t need to be able to see to feel the heat of Steve’s smile.

“I can feel you, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, and then a sob chokes its way free. “I can feel your _skin_.”

Steve must forget that they’re in a roomful of people, because he carefully leans down and kisses the tip of one finger, and Bucky’s smile feels like it’s about to stretch his face entirely in two. The tears finally slip free, and he’s laughing and crying and he’s never been so excited about anything since back before the war. Well, Steve excepting. And maybe sex with Steve, too.

“I felt that!” He reaches out with his flesh hand, and Steve hurries over to take it in both of his own. “I can feel your lips with _those_ fingers!”

Steve grins as bright and happy as Bucky’s ever seen him, and Bucky can’t help himself: he pulls Steve close and kisses him. The tips of their tongues brush, and Bucky heaves Steve even _closer_. Steve settles into the vee of Bucky’s thighs, and Bucky grabs the back of Steve’s shirt and holds on.

“Sergeant Barnes!” Someone shouts from across the room, and Bucky sinks back out of the kiss with a dreamy sigh. “Sir! The arm! Your arm!”

Steve turns to look over his shoulder, and then he starts laughing.

“Shit, Bucky. Better watch that.”

Bucky tilts to look around him, and he finds the shining vibranium arm curled up strangely, hand splayed wide. It’s weird to see from this angle, but Bucky recognizes instantly what he’d been doing: apparently he’d tried to pull Steve close and grab his ass. Probably a good thing _that_ hand was too far away to embarrass them both. He starts snickering, too, and Steve kisses him again, fast and hot.

“If you..I mean, we...So…” The lab-coated woman who’d sent Steve to touch Bucky’s hand stood nearby, hands clasped together, smile looking more than a bit watery around the edges, and Bucky realized what he and Steve must look like from the outside.

 _Great Gay Romance of the Century. That’s us._

“You have not eaten today, correct?” Doctor Matchmaker has a clipboard and is starting to make little ticky marks down one side. When Bucky answers that he hasn’t had food since before midnight, she nods and finishes off her list. “Then we’ll go ahead and prep you for surgery. If you would go into the next room for your gown, please.”

All the warmth and excitement drains out of Bucky in an instant. Somehow– and maybe he’s just dumb or something– he’d never connected the not eating after midnight with being prepped for surgery. To...to be put under again. But it’s not that easy. Sedatives don’t work that well on him, and he knows what it is to be awake for surgery. The Soldier remembers Bucky’s mangled arm being removed, his shoulder gouged open, pins and pistons going in to replace bone.

Bucky starts shaking.

“Steve, I can’t!” he whispers, throat too dry to make much sound. “I can’t, Stevie. I just...I just _can’t_.”

“Buck, hey hey.” Steve cups his face in both of his warm palms. “You can do this. It’ll be okay.”

“No I...you have to make me, Steve.” Bucky closes his eyes, unwilling to watch Steve’s face when he realizes what Bucky’s asking for. “Please. You have to. Otherwise...if I wake up partway through...I could kill someone, Steve. I...it’s too dangerous.”

“If you need me to, Buck, I will. But…”

Bucky sighs when Steve wraps his big arms around around Bucky’s shoulders. He leans into Steve’s chest, tucks his face into the side of Steve’s neck.

“I do need you to, doll. Please.” Bucky swallows hard and forces himself to look up, into the warm blue of Steve’s eyes. “I nearly killed a HYDRA doc for trying to fix the arm after...after we met on the bridge. So I think you’ll have to be in there with me. Please.”

“By your side, Buck.” Steve kisses him softly and then whispers, lips moving softly against Bucky’s, “I promised ‘til the end of the line, and we’re not there yet.”

Bucky takes a deep breath and then looks up into Steve’s face. 

“Go ahead.”

Steve kisses him once more and then steps back until only their hands are touching. He starts the countdown, and Bucky holds himself still as he feels the Soldier rise up behind his eyes. With грузовой вагон, he’s gone, and he tucks himself away to wait. The last thing he really knows is that Steve kisses his forehead, lips tender and reverent, and the Soldier closes his eyes and sighs as he relaxes beneath the touch.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOING for a chapter a night until finished. Five is still in the drafting stages, but it's pretty much all there in my head, so it's just a matter of getting it down.
> 
> Continuing thanks to the wonderful MrsPoptop, and to all of you for coming along on this crazy Stucky journey.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can wait until we’re back behind closed doors,” he tells Bucky seriously, resting their foreheads together. “And then we’ll see just how much you feel up to.”
> 
> “Yeah.” Bucky shakes his head. “We'll see, alright. But Stevie!” Bucky looks up, his eyes full of tears and wonder. “I have _two hands_ to touch you!”

*****

“Steve?” 

Bucky’s voice drags Steve out of the shallows of sleep he’s waded into. Relief hits him like a hammer, and he chokes on it, even as he forces his legs to hold him when he pushes himself to standing. He crosses quickly to the side of Bucky’s hospital bed and leans down to kiss his cheek, his eyelid, his lips. Basically, he just needs to kiss every inch of Bucky that he can get at, because he’s _so damned glad_ to finally have Bucky back. 

He’d gone under as the Soldier, and then he’d awakened twice during surgery. The first time, Steve had gotten a glimpse of Bucky looking out at him, clearly in pain and fighting. The second time, they’d gotten him under again before he’d faded all the way back into himself. Now it’s been several hours since the surgery finished, and Bucky has only just gotten back, although the Soldier had woken from the anesthetic long before (and asked Steve for another hug. Steve _gladly_ gave it). 

“Was gone longer this time, wasn’t I.” Bucky’s voice is rough around the edges, but he looks good. His eyes are bright, and his skin is golden, and the blanket on his left side is _filled out by an arm_. “Takes me longer, the more times I’ve been under. Guess we should put the brain experiments on hold for a bit. At least until I’m used to this.” 

He gestures toward his left arm with his right, and the left lifts a little. Unlike the HYDRA arm, Steve can’t hear any servos whirring in this one. 

“How...how’s it feel?” 

Bucky grins at him, and stretches, lifting both arms over his head. 

“Sergeant Barnes!” A startled nurse races toward him. “You’re not supposed to raise it that high until it’s fully healed!”

“Doesn’t hurt a bit,” Bucky tells her and Steve together. “And it’s so _light_! Just enough weight to keep me from feeling off-balance, but so much lighter than the steel one.”

“It...it looks good on you,” Steve says. And it _does_ , is the thing. It fits almost smoothly against the rough edges of Bucky’s scars, and the flow of muscle delineation matches Bucky’s flesh physique perfectly. Instead of being a little too large, a little too heavy, _this_ arm looks like a natural part of him. Like he was brushed with silver leaf. Steve’s fingers itch for his pencil.

“Your healing rate is off the charts,” the nurse tells him, fussing over the computer connected to Bucky’s arm by a plug attached to the inside of his wrist, “but you still need to take it easy for a few days. Physical therapy starts in three days, and you don’t want to do anything that’ll slow you down.” She gives Steve a sharp look, and he can feel himself blush. “That means he needs to go _easy_ on that side of his body.” 

Steve can all but hear her add _and you need to go easy on it, too._ The heat in his cheeks deepens, and Bucky laughs at him. 

“Can I get outta here yet?” Bucky’s voice is still a little rough from being under and having a tube down his throat. “If I promise to come back for checks, can I _please_ finish this up back in my rooms?”

The nurse smiles at him understandingly and says she’ll get the doctor. As soon as she’s out of earshot, Bucky leans forward and grabs Steve’s wrist.

“I have a date with my best guy and a bed.” He grins, slow and wicked. “And I’m not talking about more sleep here.”

“Buck,” Steve shakes his head, “you need to take it easy.”

“Then don’t fuck me.” He shrugs both shoulders and they move together, smooth and natural. “Just get me up there and let’s get naked, yeah?”

Steve knows he’s going to lose if he tries to argue, so he just leans forward to catch Bucky’s lips with his own, kissing him as softly as he can manage, even when Bucky tries to pull him closer. 

“You can wait until we’re back behind closed doors,” he tells Bucky seriously, resting their foreheads together. “And then we’ll see just how much you feel up to.”

“Yeah.” Bucky shakes his head. “We'll see, alright. But Stevie!” Bucky looks up, his eyes full of tears and wonder. “I have _two hands_ to touch you!”

He bursts into tears that, to Steve, sound a lot like joy. Steve stretches beside him, pulling him close and kissing his hair as he lets his own tears of relief finally come. 

“Never thought....” Bucky chokes, coughs, and tries again, and Steve holds him tightly. “Didn’t really think I’d have...ya know, a hand. I kinda hated the other one. _Murder_ arm. Just always a reminder. I don’t...I don’t know if this’n will… Stevie, I don’t wanna kill anymore. I’m just...I’m just so damned tired of all the blood.”

“I know, Buck.” Steve kisses his wet cheek. “I know, buddy. And...you won’t have to. Unless...Buck.” Steve takes a deep breath. “I need you to protect yourself, if anyone ever comes for you. Please, Buck, I...I need you.”

Bucky makes a sound that’s half hiccup, half sob. “I can’t promise, Stevie. I can’t promise anything. ‘Cept this: I promise that I’ll do my best. I’ll try to be around for you. I’ll try. And...and I’ll love you just like always, forever.”

Steve smiles at him, and Bucky tries to smile back. It’s not _enough_ , and Steve wants to demand that Bucky do anything to be okay, to fight. To run. But he knows better: Bucky has shouldered the burden of guilt, and it sometimes pushes him to his knees. Steve has no idea how to make it any better, how to help Bucky realize that he was _forced_ into that role. That...that it’s not on his conscience. And then Steve thinks of the destruction he’s left in his own wake, the lives he didn’t save when he should have. Pot, meet Kettle.

All he can do is let Bucky link their fingers, metal between Steve’s flesh, and try to kiss his understanding into Bucky’s pliant mouth.

*****

Getting through his medical release takes _forever_ , and Bucky has now been forbidden to attempt at least five things he’s never even _imagined_ before. Thankfully, Steve isn’t on the list of things he can’t do. Bucky suspects that it’s because the medical doctor doesn’t actually know the things a couple of supersoldiers can get up to in private. Bucky pounces as soon as Steve gets the door shut. He catches Steve off-guard, managing to slam him into the wall and licking into a hot, hungry kiss. Steve matches him nibble for nibble and kiss for kiss with a flurry of groping hands. When he runs his finger along the still-healing seam of vibranium and skin, Bucky cringes away, hissing at the burn of it.

“Sorry!” Steve holds both of his hands wide instantly. “Sorry, Buck, I–”

“Don’t apologize.” Bucky cuts him off and then reaches out to unfasten his belt. Steve squeaks as Bucky cinches it tight to release the tongue. “Just don’t touch me there for a little while longer.”

Steve watches him dubiously for a second, and then he shrugs and pulls his shirt over his head before reaching out to help Bucky out of his. After that, Steve just avoids Bucky’s shoulder while apparently trying to touch every _other_ inch of Bucky’s skin; Bucky’s entirely on board with that idea, since his skin has gone for nearly three whole days without any of Steve’s touch. They both make it to bare skin by the time they hit the hallway, and the trip to the bed seems to take hours as they stop to kiss and grope on the way. 

They finally get there, though, and Bucky throws himself down while Steve scrambles to dig through his bag, looking for the slick. He holds it up triumphantly, and asks if Bucky wants to prep him, or if he wants Steve to get it over with and climb on top. Bucky’s gone without too long to wait, so he just grabs the bottle of lube from Steve’s hand and squeezes a generous stream over his own hips and cock. Steve gives that little huff of pleasure that tells Bucky they’re on the same page, and slots himself between Bucky's thighs. The first thrust of Steve's cock over the slick on Bucky's stomach is glorious, and then Steve settles in more firmly so his hipbone gives Bucky some friction right where he most wants it. 

“Just like that, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, and he slides his new metal fingertips down the satin skin of Steve's lower back. It's not the same sensation as he gets from his flesh hand, but Bucky feels heat and smooth, firm and rippling. He reaches up and tangles that hand in Steve's soft hair. “Come on, doll. Give it to me harder!” 

Steve snaps forward, and Bucky considers his balls. He's known, of course, that it feels good to have them handled just right. Licking and sucking are also good sensations. He's never really thought about what it would mean to have sex like this with a man, though. How the soft slap of Steve's against his would be a secondary, incredibly intimate, pleasure. 

He arches his neck to let Steve's teeth reach his throat with greater ease and slides his flesh hand into Steve's hair to keep his mouth against the most sensitive place at the side of his throat. Steve growls when Bucky grabs his ass with the metal hand, so Bucky squeezes harder, guiding Steve's hips into a long, tight-pressed grind. As good as it feels, as loud as Steve's getting, Bucky knows it's not going to take either of them long. 

He wants to talk, to try to say words that'll get Steve as hot as Steve's depraved speeches can make Bucky. Nothing springs to mind, though, since he can't imagine _anything_ being more amazing than what they're doing together right then.

“Fuck, I love you, Stevie.” His voice is ragged from arousal and anesthetic, from crying so hard before, both with joy and relief. “So glad it was you with me today.”

Steve makes a sound, something soft and lost, desperate and pained, and then the space between them is wet and hot and then wetter and hotter still. Bucky's so close he can taste it, and Steve holds on hard to him and keeps grinding in, body never slowing. It's good and perfect, and Bucky thinks his vision is starting to shatter into sparkles, but he's still on the front edge of orgasm, and he doesn't know what he needs to finish.

“Your turn, baby,” Steve says quietly. “I want to see you come. Come on, Buck. Let go. Let me see you. I need it, babe.”

That's it. Game over.

Both of Bucky's hands clench: his right jerks hard on Steve's hair; the left pinches into the meat of one of Steve's perfect ass cheeks. Bucky thinks he might be shouting something, but he can't be sure what. Whatever comes out of his mouth, though, makes Steve cry out softly, spasming all over again.

And then it's all still, silent except for their heaving breath. 

“That was perfect, Buck.” Steve kisses his shoulder, his neck, his chest. “You're so damned amazing. Fuck, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.”

Bucky wants to disagree: _he's_ the lucky one. He's the one with the person who doesn’t care that he lost an arm or that he’s some freak of science. He’s the one who found his best friend decades after they lost one another. The one who had gentle kisses and hot hands to help him find himself again after being so lost for decades. The guy who Captain America gave up everything for. He still doesn't entirely get how, but he's so damned grateful it hurts. 

“Love you, doll.” 

It's all he can manage, but the way Steve kisses him says it's maybe enough.

Bucky dreams that night. He dreams of a Steve small enough to fit into the protective curve of Bucky’s body. He dreams of burying his nose in the hair of that little Steve and breathing in deeply, smelling the mix of cigarette smoke and sweat from a night in a crowded dance hall. It’s so very _Steve_ , and Bucky hugs harder with the arm he has looped over Steve’s tiny body. The ridges of Steve’s prominent spine press into Bucky’s chest, and Bucky’s breath hitches until he feels Steve’s wheezing, shaky breathing settle into the shallow breathing of sleep. Steve shuffles in his sleep, and it presses his bony butt into Bucky’s cock. That’s the first Bucky knows how aroused he is. He tries to tell himself that it’s the little brunette he’d been dancing with earlier in the night, but he knows better. It’s Steve. It’s all Steve. The scent of him filling Bucky’s nose. The featherlight weight of his body cradled against Bucky’s own. The certain knowledge that no one else has ever held Steve the same way. Bucky _wants_ , and he can’t help giving in, just a little bit. 

He loses track of time as he pushes forward against Steve’s body, taking the relief of friction where he’s hot and aching. And then Steve wakes up and rolls, arms looping around Bucky’s neck, voice whispering pleas for Bucky to kiss him. To hold him. To suck him. To fuck him. 

“No no no,” Bucky answers. “You’re too little like this, Stevie. I don’t wanna hurt you. Hafta do it the other way. You gotta get in me, okay? You’re gonna fuck me, and I’ll love it. All of it. Want you.”

He comes awake with a start, sweating all over, shaking hard enough to make the whole bed tremble.

“Buck?” Steve’s voice is sleep-heavy and muffled from the pillow. “You okay? ‘Sit hurting?”

“Stevie!” Bucky reaches for his aching cock with one hand and Steve with the other. He hadn’t really even thought about it, about which hand was going where, until the cold of his metal fingers meets his own overheated skin. It’s electric and painful and _wonderful_ , and he wonders if Steve would be up for feeling those icy fingertips push inside his burning hot ass. “Shit, I’m fine. Just...Just dreaming. ‘Bout you. Don’t think it was a memory, but _God_ it felt so real. I just...I want you, Stevie. Inside me, this time. Please! You gotta! I need...oh fuck, doll. _Please_!”

Steve takes Bucky’s hand and rolls onto his back, tugging Bucky toward him. Bucky climbs over him and leans down to kiss, ignoring the sleep-stale breath. He sits up and fumbles around in the covers, trying to find the bottle from earlier. It’s light, probably nearly empty, but Bucky doesn’t really give a damn. He wants Steve inside him, and he wants it _now_. Less than two minutes later, he considers the fact that he _might_ ought to have prepared just a little more to take Steve before slicking up Steve’s cock and just sitting right down on it. Still, he can take the burn, and he loves being on top like this, for the first time free to use both hands to touch Steve’s perfect body. 

The sound Steve makes when Bucky sinks onto him is ferocious, and Bucky immediately lifts just an inch and sinks back down to hear it again. Steve moans again, and Bucky lifts further, stretching across the bed until his metal fingertips bump the lamp. He fumbles around until the switch clicks, and then he can see Steve spread beneath him, face flushed, chest already gleaming with sweat. 

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he says, sitting down firmly again and running both of his hands in from the points of Steve’s broad shoulders and down his pecs. He presses both palms– again marvelling that he _has_ two hands with which to touch– against Steve’s stomach and rocks forward with his hips. Steve’s lips fall open and his eyes go heavy-lidded. “Can’t believe this is all mine. Do you know how many people in the world would hate me for this? For being the one to touch you like this?” 

Steve spreads his legs wider, and Bucky turns his slow rocking motion into deeper thrusts. Steve licks his lips and tries to say something, possibly Bucky’s name, but no words escape around the soft groan he gives when Bucky tweaks his nipple with the cool metal of his prosthetic. 

“Never thought the person I’d want most in the world would be a guy.” Bucky can’t look away from the way Steve’s face is going redder, flush spreading down to his shoulders and chest. From the way Steve’s pupils have swallowed nearly all of the blue in his eyes. “Especially never thought I’d want this, want a cock up my ass. God, how did I not know how good it could be like this?”

Steve rustles against the sheet like he wants to participate but can’t get enough of his sleep- and sex-muddled thoughts together to know what to do. 

“I, uh, I forgive you for letting your guard down with the Soldier,” Bucky tells him, trying to keep the motion of his spine and thighs slow and steady. “I mean, I wouldn’t hurt you Steve. I don’t think I can now. Not even if I’m...if I’m not me, ya know? So it’s okay. And I’m sorry I...I overreacted.”

Steve’s eyebrows squinch together, and he sucks in an enormous breath.

“Don’t care about that, Buck. Is okay, yeah?” He reaches up and toys with the tip of Bucky’s cock, fingers collecting the thin, clear stream that’s dripping steadily from the tip. It’s hot as ten hells, but the touch isn’t enough to do more than tease. “I get it. You worry. I worry, too. So it’s okay.”

The words are clipped and slurred, and Bucky decides he doesn’t want to drag it out. He just wants to enjoy this, enjoy himself enjoying Steve. 

“Put your hands to good use, Cap,” he says, grinning crookedly. “Come on, doll. Get me off.”

Steve scoops up the slick with his free hand and and pours a puddle into his palm, and then he reaches out to squeeze tightly around Bucky’s cock. It’s _perfect_ , and Bucky starts to rock harder, reaching back with his flesh hand to brace himself on Steve’s thigh. He works harder, fucking into Steve’s hand and back onto Steve’s cock with with sharp, tight thrusts. Steve’s breath begins to stutter, whooshing out hard and then being pulled in with short pants of “ah ah ah.” Bucky tries to hold on, and then Steve’s eyes nearly roll up in his head. Bucky quits fighting at that point and lets the electric pleasure of Steve’s cock rubbing over his prostate and Steve’s callouses rubbing over the head of his cock wash over. He sprays across Steve’s sleek, bare chest, and then slowly tips off sideways, collapsing onto the bed.

“No.” Steve rolls over and gets to his knees. “Ohhh, hell no, Buck!”

Bucky looks up at him, lazy and loose after his orgasm. He _knows_ what Steve is objecting to, and he knows what Steve can do about it, but he’s not going to make it easy on him. 

“Are you seriously going to wake me up, ride my prick, get your...your come all over me, and then just flop down to go back to sleep?” Steve rears up, pulling in as much self-righteousness as he can muster while kneeling on a shaky mattress. Buck naked. With an erection. And a stomach covered in Bucky’s spunk. “Oh, no, Bucky-my-Bucky. You’re at least going to stay awake to watch.”

“What’s ‘a matter, Stevie?” Bucky wriggles against the sheets, giving Steve his best come-hither eyes. Some part of him is still back in the dream, and the dimness of the light makes it easy to picture Steve’s face as thin and pale as it used to be. Bucky’s astonished to find that, no matter how he felt about Steve back then, he now finds memories of that tiny, skinny, mouthy little runt hot as hell. “You still wanting? You still needing a little something there? You still thinking about what it was like in my ass? You wanna _fuck_ me some more? Need to get all back in there? Need to mark me up inside?”

Steve lets out a wordless groan and drops down over Bucky to kiss him hard. Bucky’s just getting into it, mouth open and soft for Steve’s tongue to invade, lazily flicking his own tongue against the tip of Steve’s. Steve sits up and glares at him again, then he grins, sharp and dangerous. Before Bucky can prepare himself, Steve grabs his hips and flips him, pressing his chest and face into the bed. 

“I should fuck the sass outta you, Barnes.” Steve tightens the fingers of one hand in Bucky’s hair and then grabs his hips to pull them up. Bucky pictures himself on the bed, half-pinned by Steve’s big hands, half lifted so that his puffy-feeling, well-fucked hole is practically on display. It’s enough to make his dick throb with interest, even if he can’t actually get hard again _quite_ so fast. 

There’s a long silence, and Bucky starts to tense up, ready to see if his new metal arm is healed into his bones enough to fight off Steve’s superstrong grip. And then Steve lets out a gusty sigh.

“Damn, Buck.” Steve’s voice is low and reverent. “If you could see yourself like this... So red from riding my prick. The line of your back, and the way your shoulders flex. So beautiful, babydoll. So goddamned hot! Jesus, I can’t believe I get to see you like this. Shit, Buck, it’s just… I’d paint you, just like this, but I never want anyone else to enjoy this view. Your gorgeous, Bucks. You’re perfect. And you’re mine.”

Bucky feels Steve lean down to kiss the center of his spine, and then there’s heat and pressure, and a long slide, and Bucky’s so oversensitive he thinks his ass is going to catch fire. And then Steve is in him, deep as he can get, and they’re moving together, both of them crying out, although probably for different reasons. Bucky’s sure that Steve can’t be feeling any kind of pain, pleasurable or otherwise. He fucks into Bucky with short, firm strokes, chasing his own orgasm in a businesslike fashion, and Bucky thinks it’s the best it’s ever been. 

His own need for climax is over, and all he has to do is hold on, bracing to be the vehicle for Steve to find his release. It’s incredibly freeing, knowing that his body has a use like this, that it can bring some kind of joy to Steve. He thinks that, of all the uses his body has been put to in the last seven decades, this is one he’ll gladly submit to over and over again. Steve slumps down over him, bearing them both down to the bed, and Bucky reaches up to tangle his fingers in Steve’s hair. He turns his head to kiss at Steve’s lips, the angle too far off to let it turn into much more than bumping mouths awkwardly, sharing breath and closeness while Steve races toward orgasm.

“That’s it, doll,” Bucky says, his cadence off as his breath is pushed out of him with every snap of Steve’s hips. “Take it. All of it. Yours, Stevie, just take it.”

Steve bites the back of Bucky’s flesh shoulder to muffle his shout as he comes, his giant body shuddering hard enough to make the bed creak with the tremors. Bucky laughs and shivers and laughs some more. He pats Steve’s head and his shoulder, pats the back of Steve’s big hand that’s resting in front of his face. Reaches down to pat Steve’s thigh as he shifts to climb off of Bucky’s back.

“Ready to go back to sleep now?” he asks, fully sated and not hoping for anything else for a change. “Think you got enough out to make it to morning?”

“Let’s _never_ go two days without fucking again.” Steve grins at him, lopsided, like he can’t get all of his face to cooperate with him. “Or at least let’s never go that long without talking. When we’re together, I mean.”

“Okay, Stevie.” Bucky cringes as he pushes himself up to reach the light. His left side and back are sore, but it’s not too bad, his skeleton already healing around the new vibranium parts T’Challa’s scientists put in. “Just don’t be an idiot, and we won’t ever have to.”

“Roll up your flaps, Barnes.” Steve rolls to his side and pulls Bucky in close as he sinks back to the bed. “Don’t forget I’m your superior officer.”

“Sure, Captain.” Bucky kisses him once more and then shuffles down until he can push his face against Steve’s smooth chest. “You keep tellin’ yourself that.”

“I love you, jerk.” Steve’s voice is already softening toward sleep. 

“Love you, too, punk.” Bucky’s chest feels stuffed and heavy, and it’s the best thing he’s felt in a long, _long_ time. He turns his head to listen to the steady, strong beating of Steve’s super-charged heart. It’s the perfect lullaby, and he fades into a dreamless sleep.

*****

Steve wakes up a little sore in the morning. He _never_ wakes up sore, unless he’s officially gotten the snot beat out of him the day before. Or, ya know, gotten a bullet to the belly from his best-friend-turned-deadly-HYDRA-assassin. Apparently he now can add _incredibly fantastic sex_ to the list of things that could linger in his muscles and bones. Bucky’s still a boneless heap on the bed, metal arm flung carelessly over his head. Steve carefully presses a kiss to the vibranium wrist and then collects his sketch pad from the nightstand. While he’s got him there, relaxed and posed so well, he’s going to get an actual sketch of Bucky. 

For a solid hour, he loses himself in the scratch of his pencil and the way the angles of Bucky’s hips and ribs appear on the paper. He traces the edge of Bucky’s lips, his own breath catching as he remembers the feeling of the sharpness of the vee of Bucky’s top lip against his own tongue. Bucky moves at the soft hiccup of sound, rolling his head from one side to the other and then back, shoulders bunching with a near-stretch. Steve swallows hard and hopes he hasn’t ruined the moment; it’s been so nice to be alone in the quiet with Bucky’s soft breath and peaceful dreams.

With a deep sigh, Bucky’s hands unclench, and he relaxes back down into steady breaths, and Steve goes back to sketching. Given that he’s an artist, trained eye and all, it takes Steve an embarrassingly long time to notice the obvious change in his subject. He’s finished brushing in the details of Bucky’s face and ribs and gone back to work on the shadows of Bucky’s hips and thighs, where the sheet is barely keeping him decent. Except that now the sheet is _not_ making him anything like decent. If anything, it’s accentuating the indecency of Bucky’s pose by draping suggestively from his waking-swollen prick. The head is peeking out, flushed red and bright, and Steve wants to lean down and run his tongue along the seam where Bucky’s foreskin is just rolling back. 

He still doesn’t understand how he can possibly _want_ anyone the way he does Bucky. But he knows he does, and oh, how badly he does! His mouth is watering, and he’s trying to tell himself to stop being creepy, and then he suddenly notices that the corner of Bucky’s mouth has tipped up and is twitching: Bucky, the jerk, is wide awake and knows exactly what his body is doing and what it’s doing to Steve.

“See something you want, Stevie?” One of Bucky’s bright blue eyes opens, barely more than a crack, and his smile becomes more pronounced. 

Oh yes, Steve sees something he wants. His dick throbs under the sketchpad he has on his lap, and Steve has to resist the urge to throw it across the room. He carefully folds it closed to put it on the nightstand, and then he rolls on top of Bucky, kissing along the edge of his sharp, beautiful jaw.

“Had been thinking about swallowing you down for breakfast,” he says between kisses, “but then you woke up all mouthy, and I started to think that maybe I should pin you down and fuck your face until you’re too hoarse to speak. Or maybe I should just gag you and fuck your ass, see if you can come from nothing but my prick sliding inside you.”

“Jesus, Stevie!” Bucky arches up against Steve’s chest, back bowing off the soft mattress. “Where the _hell_ did you learn to talk like that?”

“You’re the one that used to tell me I had a filthy mouth.” Steve grins down at him and then scoots further down to lick across Bucky’s nipple, reveling in the hiss of pleasure that earns him. “You remember how you were always trying to shut me up? Get me to stop mouthing off to everyone around me?”

Steve tries very hard not to think about the last woman he’d been with. He’d taken her home at a friend’s urging, against his own better judgement. Still, it’d been such a long time, and she’d been dark-haired and blue-eyed, and, in the dim glow from the streetlights, she’d looked enough like two other people Steve had loved. She’d sat on top of him, spewing filth that got Steve so hot, he’d rolled her over and almost gotten carried away, pinning her wrists to the bed. She’d gone from dirty talking to demanding he stop, and Steve had complied in an instant. He’d been too ashamed of himself to continue, and she’d slapped him on the way out the door. 

After that, Steve had decided he’d never get involved with anyone that didn’t have enough physical training to take his strength. It’d been lonely, at least until Sam had come along. Sam hadn’t _minded_ when Steve had let loose with all his dirtiest thoughts and words, but he hadn’t really participated. His brand of sex-talk had leaned more toward soft whispers and playful teasing. It’d been _nice_ , but it was nothing compared to bedding Bucky.

With Bucky, Steve feels powerful, experienced, sexy. He can’t imagine a more beautiful sight than Bucky spread out underneath him, begging with his eyes and his voice and the way his body strains toward every touch. Thing is, Steve _means_ everything he says to Bucky when they are naked and working together. He can actually picture himself doing all the depraved things that his mouth can’t hold in. That doesn’t mean he _would_ , not without Bucky’s enthusiastic participation, but he can picture it, and the images that build in his mind’s eye are beautiful, enticing, erotic. Steve can’t really tell if he wants to do all the things he says or if he just wants to draw them, but he still loves the imagining and the way it makes him hotter and the way speaking his fantasies seems to drive Bucky out of his mind.

“Sergeant Barnes to Cap,” Bucky says, playfully rumpling Steve’s hair with his metal hand. “Come back here, Steve. You were in the middle of planning how you were gonna get me off, in case you’ve forgotten. So quit thinking and get to fucking.”

Steve laughs and licks over his navel and then scoots down further still and sucks Bucky down, smiling around his mouthful as Bucky cries out and grabs at his hair. Neither of them say much after that– at least not much that makes any sense, but Steve’s pretty sure they understand each other perfectly.

After he swallows down all Bucky has to offer, he rolls him over and makes use of his still-loose, still-sloppy ass. Eventually, they stumble to the shower. Steve gets out first, leaving Bucky to explore the joys of being able to soap all of his own body, and finds a message from T’Challa requesting that Steve alone meets with him in the garden later that morning. Steve makes breakfast while Bucky dresses, and then he takes his own turn finding clean clothing, wondering if jeans and a t-shirt are actually appropriate for what amounts to answering a royal summons. He finally decides that, if T’Challa wanted formal, he wouldn’t have chosen the garden. When he goes back to the sitting room, Bucky’s got Steve’s laptop open on his knees.

“If I was the jealous sort,” he says, eyeing Steve from head to toe in a way that looks like he wants to eat him, “I’d tell you to go put on some uglier pants. Your ass looks good enough to bite in those.”

Steve feels his ears heating, and Bucky laughs and reaches out to pull him down for one more kiss. 

“Hurry back,” he whispers when he finally lets Steve go, and Steve kisses him again, just because he can.

T’Challa is waiting for him, guardless and comfortable in shirt-sleeves and slacks. He smiles at Steve, and Steve thinks that it looks like the grief for his father is finally fading from his eyes. His shoulders are wide and relaxed, strong enough to hold the weight of the kingship and well-suited to the task. The sun that filters through the thinner leaves raises dappled highlights of honey in his dark skin, and the shadows deepen the accents of grey that shape his cheeks and jaw. He’s a study in contrasts: the ink of his hair, the white of his grin; the earth of his skin, the dark rose of his lips. 

“I would love to paint a portrait of you,” Steve says impulsively. He immediately feels his cheeks heat and wonders if there’s a graceful way to smooth over the presumption of the declaration.

“Some of my advisors are demanding that I get a Western-style portrait done.” T’Challa’s grin widens. “We can schedule sittings for times you can be here, around Sergeant Barnes’s physical therapy, of course. And then I can tell them it is in hand, and maybe they will find something else to pester me about for a few weeks.”

Steve thanks him, fingers already itching for his pencil to start getting down ideas. He knows he’ll stay up all night coming up with poses and possible backgrounds to show at the first possible opportunity. He laughs a little to himself as he imagines Bucky’s grumbling about the light being on so late. It’ll almost be like before the war, Steve imagines. He loves times that feel like that, and he sometimes wishes he was small enough to curl into Bucky’s arms like he used to. Losing that comfort is such a worthy sacrifice, though, to have survived through so much in order to still be there when Bucky was finally ready to kiss him and hold him for more than basic warmth.

“How is he?” T’Challa asks. “Bucky, I mean. How is he handling having a new arm, so like the old one?”

Steve snorts and shakes his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like Bucky taking on this whole mess.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets as T’Challa gestures up the path and turns to walk. Steve keeps pace with him as he talks. “He’s still watchful, ya know. Always just a little tense, but I think he’s starting to feel more secure. Sometimes he even takes two easy breaths before his back gets stiff again.”

It doesn’t really answer T’Challa’s question, but he nods like he gets it, and Steve keeps going.

“He says he loves the arm, and he’s already trying to use it too much.” Steve shrugs. “He says it doesn’t hurt, and I think he’s telling the truth. He’s not flinching when he moves it or lifts it or…” He trails off awkwardly. There is no good way to say _when he braces himself so I can fuck him good and hard_ to an actual king. 

T’Challa just nods again and hums thoughtfully.

“And how are you taking it?” he asks, and Steve can feel him watching out of the corner of his eye. 

“Oh, it’s great!” He pulls one hand out of his pocket to gesture. “Feels good to see him whole, you know? Or at least...at least functioning. He hated having to ask for help with things. Buck’s an independent cuss.”

“I do not mean the arm.” T’Challa stops and turns more directly toward Steve, eyes intent. “Or I do not mean _only_ the arm. I mean how are you taking having him back. I believe that you have a new...a _different_ relationship with him than you had before.” He holds up one hand. “I am not asking for details, you see. I am merely wondering if this is something will last, or if it is a thing that will collapse and bring unrest to the very heart of my kingdom.”

“I can’t promise it won’t all fall apart,” Steve answers, and the factuality of the statement chokes him for a moment. It _could_ crumble around him, any second really. “But it won’t stop me loving him or him loving me. Even if I go back up there after this and he says he doesn’t...doesn’t want to be with me like that anymore, it’ll still be okay between us.”

“And it has been worth all you have given up for him?” T’Challa is watching him closely, and Steve isn’t sure what he’s asking.

“I’d have given up more,” he says simply. “I’d give up everything for Buck.”

“And if you hadn’t had to?” T’Challa raises an eyebrow and turns to continue his walk. “If you hadn’t had to give up your shield and your title and your home? Your standing with your government and your friends?”

Steve can’t begin to see how he wouldn’t have had to lose all of that. He could not in good conscience have signed the Accords. He doesn’t think. It had just felt so shades of gray, and the darker shades at that. And coming as it had on the heels of that disaster in Lagos, it had felt punitive. More as if it was aimed at containing the Avengers and anyone like them, controlling them, forcing them to conform to rules they would have no say in. Maybe Tony had been okay with the thought of giving up control, but Steve couldn’t do it. Could _never_ do it. 

And then he’d lost Peggy forever and found Bucky in such close succession, and after that there hadn’t been time to slow down and think. Besides, Tony had asked him to sign that damn thing a second time while Bucky was being held in a cell that looked like some kind of biocontainment unit. There was no way in _Hell_ that would have happened. Maybe if they had taken the time to determine that Bucky was no threat, that he needed protection more than punishment…

Still, it was so little to give up in comparison to having Bucky somewhere safe, to have Bucky in his arms, to have had the opportunity to make love to Bucky the way he’d so often dreamt about over the years. That, being able to be with Bucky, to feel him whole and safe, to have him cracked open and pleading, was worth it. Would _always_ be worth it. Even holding Bucky while he’d cried and cried that first day, or maybe _especially_ that. Worth everything and more.

“I can’t go back and change things,” Steve finally says. He shrugs and stuffs both of his hands back into his pockets. “If I could…” 

If he could, he would start with pulling Bucky out of the frozen river he’d fallen into. He would go back and find a way to leave a trail as he crashed for Howard to find him, to take him home and thaw him out and to give him that time with Peggy. He would go back to finding Bucky on that bridge in DC, chase him down and keep him.

“Buck’s in a good place.” He shrugs. “I mean, better than you’d imagine. He still has nightmares, but who doesn’t. He’s coping, I think. Maybe even healing.”

“And you?” T’Challa stops at on a stone bridge over a small stream. Steve can’t tell if it’s a natural spring or if it was guided there centuries before and bridged to make a place for kings to rest and look regal and royal against the backdrop of the overhanging vines and sheltering trees, the brilliant flowers and lush leafy plants. _This_ is how he’d paint T’Challa, given his own choice. “How are you handling your own traumas?”

“What traumas?” Steve asks, leaning his own elbows on the low stone parapet. He watches the water glitter as is flows past. “You mean sinking into the ocean for almost six decades? Losing my best friend in the war? Waking up in a world that doesn’t make much sense? Finding friends and a mission and losing all of it? I’m handling it.”

T’Challa turns toward him and frowns, a crease folding between his brows. 

“I would take you at your word,” he says slowly, “but I have yet to see any evidence that you have slowed down to face it. It feels more like you are running away.”

“Just don’t have time.” Steve brushes off the concern in T’Challa’s voice. It’s none of his business, anyway, right?

“Captain Rogers,” T’Challa says, and then he shakes his head. “Steve. I would like to think that, as we have come together for a common cause in caring for your Bucky, that we are friends. Or at least allies. And I am...concerned for you. The world rests heavy on your shoulders, and you still seem to bear the weight of responsibilities that are not your own, decisions you did not make.”

“I’m _handling_ it.” Steve takes a deep breath and presses his lips together to stop himself from snapping any more. “If it’s still rough later, when Buck’s better, I’ll figure something out then.”

“You said it yourself,” T’Challa says gently, “he is handling it better than could ever be hoped for. And I know you are worried for him, but do not let his needs permanently outweigh your own. You will not be much good to him broken.”

“I’m _fine_.” Steve shakes his head and straightens up. “I should be getting back up to Bucky. The follow-up for his arm is tomorrow morning, right?”

“Steve,” T’Challa says it gently and rests his hand on Steve’s bicep for a moment. “Go back to him, but think about it. Take some time to take care of yourself in all this. And yes. Tomorrow night. I’ll be there to oversee it.”

“Thank you.” It comes out tighter than Steve means it to, because he _does_ appreciate everything T’Challa is doing for Bucky. Is doing for Steve, for that matter. This safe place to test their new boundaries and what the security and privacy do for both of their sleep. It’s all precious to him. “Seriously, T’Challa.” The name feels strange in Steve’s mouth, since he’s always used the title “Majesty” before. T’Challa grins at him, looking suddenly boyish in his glee at the name from Steve’s lips. “I can’t ever thank you enough.”

“Thank me by making sure you’re doing okay,” T’Challa tells him. 

They exchange goodbyes, and Steve goes back to the palace and starts to make his way to Bucky, still annoyed, but not sure exactly what he’s mad about. He opens the door to their rooms, finds the sitting room empty, and goes looking for Bucky. 

He finds him, all right. In the bedroom. Naked. Shaking. Glistening with sweat. Gorgeous. Braced on his knees and his metal hand. Flesh arm wrapped around behind him. Four fingers wedged into his own ass.

“Hey, Stevie,” he says calmly. He blows a lock of damp hair off his face and grins wolfishly. “Getting my whole fist up my ass is harder than it looks on the internet. Wanna give me a hand?”

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm a day late. Yesterday was a frantic dash to finish up the pattern for a class I'm teaching this morning (in...oh, 18 minutes or so). Sooooo, hope you like the chapter, and, if I don't keel over at work, I'll see about getting four up tonight. No promises, though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s lost everything. _Everything_
> 
> ...except for Bucky.

Steve's keyed up about something; Bucky can _feel_ the tension coiling up Steve's spine the instant he steps into their bedroom. He wonders what T'Challa said to stoke the cool rage that Bucky sees simmering in Steve's eyes. Part of him wants to find pants and go have a few words with His Majesty about upsetting the boyfriend (and he can’t believe he just thought _that_ word in relation to _Steve Fucking Rogers_ , of all people). Most of him wants to stay right where he is and get Steve to do what Bucky can’t quite manage. 

He’d just been kinda aimlessly trolling the internet after Steve left, and then, on a whim, he’d searched for “sex acts to try try with a male partner.” He’d stared for what felt like _hours_ at images of men holding each other, kissing each other, fingering each other, fucking each other. With the perspective of someone who had enjoyed all of those acts with another man, he found the pictures _incredibly_ appealing, especially when he managed to picture himself and Steve instead of a couple of strange, less-attractive-than-Steve guys. They’d somehow gotten steadily more intense until Bucky found a video a guy– barely more than a boy really– had posted of how he drove his boyfriend wild: he’d turned his back on the camera, slicked up his hand, and then _pressed the whole thing into his own ass._

It’d been _amazing._

At first Bucky tried to imagine watching Steve do that. He didn’t get very far; it just didn’t seem like the kind of thing Steve would be much interested in trying. Steve didn’t seem to...to want to explore himself the way some people did. Bucky sometimes wondered if it was a serum thing– like Steve just didn’t _want_ to know how much his body had changed, or maybe he just didn’t want to compare it to the way it’d been before. Other times he was pretty sure that it was just Steve being Steve. Sometimes, when they’d shared a tent during the war or shared a hotel room after the Siberian incident, Bucky had heard Steve. He’d jerk himself in a businesslike fashion, never drawing it out, never just...playing with himself.

So Bucky tried to imagine himself doing it; _that_ was surprisingly easy to picture. He’d wondered how it would feel, the excessive stretch, sharp and so _real_. It would sting, Bucky was sure, the same kind of burn he’d felt when Steve had first opened him up and fucked him. He wondered if the weight of a hand inside him would add to the fullness that made his belly churn and turned off all the self-doubting, nervous little voices in his brain. He considered the idea for a good thirty seconds before he’d had to shut the computer with a little too much enthusiasm and race to the bedroom to find another bottle of lube in Steve’s bag and get started on trying.

He’d gotten frustrated quickly. He could either get all of his fingers in himself _or_ work his thumb in with one or two, but he couldn’t get the angle right to fit them all in together. He’d finally figured out how to work the tip of his thumb in against the side of his index finger, and he could pull himself open further, breathing deeply to relax into the burning sting of it, but he still hadn’t quite gotten the angle right. 

And then Steve came through the door, looking like he wanted to hit something.

His anger started fading as soon as he’d seen Bucky, and now Bucky’s hoping that Steve will forget being pissed off long enough to, er, lend a hand to the experiment.

“I’m not sure...how does that even...Buck?” Steve’s staring at him, horse-faced anger quickly being replaced by wide-eyed astonishment. 

“Look, I saw someone do it to himself.” Bucky decides that Steve isn’t moving fast enough and goes back to trying fold himself in half sideways to get his hand in a little further. “Saw a helluva lot of pics of people doing it to each other. So it’s at least _possible_.” The stretch of his spine makes his ribs complain around where they’re connected to his metal arm, so he relaxes and pulls his hand free to rest his wrist. “But I can’t get it. And I _want_ it, Stevie! Come on over here and try try for me. Please, doll?

Steve nods, face now completely blank with his shock, and Bucky’s dick gives a throb, as does his ass. He can’t _wait_ to be filled up. Steve’s hands and fingers are strangely delicate for the size of him, but they’re large and muscular and strong, thicker than Bucky’s. He’s willing to bet it’ll all feel better when it’s Steve’s hand, something Bucky isn’t controlling, pushing inside him so insistently. 

Steve pulls his shirt over his head as he crosses the room, and Bucky again experiences the urge to lick his nipples. He whimsically thinks that he can happily live without breasts on a partner ever again, so long as he has Steve’s chest all to himself. Steve’s not looking at Bucky’s face as he toes off his boots and climbs onto the bed. His gaze is fixed on Bucky’s ass, and Bucky wonders what it looks like from Steve’s point of view. He supposes he could ask Steve for a drawing later; God knows, Steve’s brain stores up things to draw like a camera with unlimited film. Not that anyone uses film in the future. It’s all digital cameras and mobile phones these days.

Bucky wonders how he can get so distracted by random thoughts in the middle of sex, and then he loses _all_ train of thought as Steve’s thumb traces around his over-sensitive opening.

“Not sure this is going to work, Buck.” Steve leans down to press his lips against the small of Bucky’s back. “But I’ll try, if you’re sure. Just...promise you’ll tell me if it’s too much? If it hurts?”

“It fucking better,” Bucky grumbles. “Wouldn’t do all this for something I’m not gonna feel.”

Steve doesn’t start right away, so Bucky lowers his cheek to the mattress, leaving his ass up high, head pillowed on his folded arms. Steve _still_ doesn’t start, and Bucky shuffles restlessly, trying to find the right angle to lean his head on his metal arm without giving himself a black eye. He settles just in time for Steve to put a couple fingers between his ass cheeks and slowly press them in. Bucky’s body, already loose, lets Steve in easily. Steve makes a soft noise that might be hunger or might be surprise.

“Jesus, Buck.” Steve’s voice is low and reverent as he works his fingers in and out. “How long have you been working on yourself? You’re so...soft. Feels amazing from this side.”

“Bet it’d feel better if you’d get on with it,” Bucky grumbles, wiggling his hips from side to side. “I know _I’d_ feel better if you’d hurry up and give me more.”

“Pushy.” Steve laughs, a deep, dirty chuckle, and then he backs his hand out, pulling Bucky’s rim wider as he does. It’s sharp and nearly painful, and Bucky starts to feel light-headed. “When I first stuck a finger up here, you were so goddamned tight that I wasn’t sure I’d ever fit. And here you are, just a few days later, demanding more. You’re some kind of wet dream, you know that, Barnes? Healing up so fast that it seems I can’t hurt you. My _God_ , do you know the things I could do to you?”

Huh. Apparently the bastardized version of the serum that Bucky has running through his veins had more uses than just _staying alive until Steve came back_ and _being able to wear a big metal arm._ Neat.

“Always heard this was best done slowly, fucking someone’s ass with...something large.” Steve picks up the lube bottle from beside Bucky’s face and then his fingers are gone from Bucky’s ass, and Bucky fights the urge to go back to trying with his own. “But here you are, already ready for me. Already so loose and open. Bet I could slide right in without any prep from here on.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d hurry up and get to sliding with that h– _Oh, shit!_ ” The curse punches its way out of him as Steve’s hand returns, slick and cold with lube, pushing against his entrance. Feels like four whole fingers from Bucky’s side of things, and he moans and bears down against the push.

“Little more than you bargained for, Buck?” Steve’s voice is sweet and pleasant, and edged with a roughness that says he’s getting off on this, too. The pressure eases for a moment and then returns and Bucky moans again. “Going to be to my knuckles in a second here, and then I’ll see if you can take my thumb, too, yeah?”

“Shit shit shit fuck goddamn!” Bucky wonders if there’s anyone else in the wing of the palace; he’s pretty sure he can be heard all the way down the corridor. He’s also _quite_ sure he doesn’t care. Not with the way it burns and stretches and just _feels_ – it’s so much, too much, and all of it is good. “Yeah, Stevie! Give it to me. Want it all, doll!”

“Listen to you, Buck!” Steve works his fingers in and out slowly, still speaking in that pleasant growl that settles in Bucky’s chest and helps him breathe through the stretch. He spreads his palm out, and it changes the angle of the stretch, and Bucky moans again, then again as Steve pushes in as far as he can, thumb pressed flat behind Bucky’s balls. “Can’t believe you really want this. How’s it feel, baby? S’it hurt?”

Bucky opens his mouth to snap again, probably to tell Steve how much _he’s_ going to hurt if he doesn’t get a move on, but then Steve backs out and and then pushes in again, and it’s so much _more_ that Bucky can’t get a breath around it. He pushes up with his arms, head hanging down limply as he pants. 

“Not sure this is gonna fit, Buck. You haven’t been taking it up the ass very long.” Steve twists his hand from side to side, and Bucky wonders if his insides are really tangling up the way it feels. “If I’d known how much you like it–” he pushes again, and Bucky’s eyes try to roll up into his head– “how much you love getting fucked, I’d have tried to get you in my bed years ago. Back before the war, maybe, when my hands were so skinny I could have gotten half my arm in there.” 

The stretch gets even _more_ intense, and Steve’s free hand lands on Bucky’s back, rubbing in large, slow circles. The balance of pleasure and pain tips sharply toward the pain end of the scale, and Bucky grunts and hisses.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve says softly, and the pressure backs away. “It’s okay we can–”

“Don’t stop, Stevie! Please don’t stop!” Bucky begs, flailing back with his flesh hand to find Steve’s knee and squeezing hard. “I want this! Come on, show me that...that I can take it. Take something like...like this. Please! I’ve just...gotta know…”

He trails off and stares in astonishment at gleaming drops of tears that fall onto his metal knuckles.

“Oh, hey, whoa. Timeout.” Steve pulls his hand entirely free and climbs further onto the bed, gathering Bucky into his arms as he does. “Just hold on a minute here.”

Bucky’s surprised to find himself shaking, and he’s a little pissed that the tears just won’t stop, no matter how much he blinks or how many times he tries to take a deep breath. Steve shushes him gently, holding him tightly, petting his hair and kissing his temple, the corners of his eyes, the edge of his top lip. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s solid ribs and holds on hard. Eventually his breathing starts to settle, and the sobs slowly die away.

“There you go, Buck. That’s it.” Steve wipes the tears off of Bucky’s face with his dry hand. “Come on, now. What are you trying to prove?”

“Just...So I have some kind of serum thing.” Bucky takes another deep, shivery breath. “And because of that I was...I was turned into something awful. Not a damn thing really felt good for so long. Stevie, doll, can you imagine how that was? I was given food to keep me going, but nothing...nothing that just tasted good. I occasionally slept on missions, but never anywhere soft. No one touched me unless they were beating me or I was beating them. Nothing good. Ever. Now I’ve got you, and you keep...keep making it good for me. Shit, Steve, I’m probably a real asshole for all that I’m getting out of this that you aren’t.”

“Oh, I’m getting plenty.” Steve looks like he’s trying to leer, but all he manages to do is look vaguely uncomfortable and possibly constipated. 

“Steve.” Bucky says it flatly, and Steve apologizes and kisses his nose. “So look. I saw this on the internet, right? And it looked...I could just imagine how it’d feel. To be so filled up by...by you. And I want it. I know I can take it, but it might take a little work to get there. Still, though, I think it’ll be awesome. I just...I just need to prove that the serum in my veins is good for more than...for more than killing people. Hurting people I care about.”

His eyes heat up with more tears, and he looks away and blinks hard to keep them in. 

“The only times I don’t see...what I did...the only times when it’s not, ya know, running behind my eyes like watching a damn movie are when you take me over. Fuck me. Make me do nothing but _feel_.”

Steve says his name, quiet and hurt, and he squeezes Bucky to his chest, kissing him hard. Bucky sighs into the kiss and settles himself more comfortably against Steve’s body, flipping one bare leg over Steve’s denim-clad thigh. 

“Stevie, doll?” Bucky pushes his hair away from where it’s sticking to the tears on his face and tries to smile. “I really would like to try this. Wanna try to...ya know...fit your whole hand up there. Please?”

Steve’s answering smile is as watery as Bucky feels, but it’s genuine and warm, and Bucky feels a wave of relief.

“I don’t...I don’t think I can handle hurting you, Buck.” Steve twists his hand into Bucky’s hair and tilts his head back, kissing up his neck. “ _Especially_ knowing that, Buck. You’ve...you’ve had enough pain to last a lifetime, and I don’t want to cause you any more.”

“Not the same kind of pain, doll.” Bucky twists, pushing Steve down onto the mattress and leaning over to kiss his, keeping it warm and gentle to comfort them both.

“What kind of pain is it, then?” Steve kisses him again, grabbing him around the ribs and rolling to throw him down on the bed, snuggling into his side and wrapping one leg over both of Bucky’s

“Oh, Steeeeeevie,” Bucky draws it out and drops back onto the bed, flinging his flesh arm over his head. His metal one is busy being pinned beneath Steve’s massive ribs, and it can stay there forever, as far as Bucky’s concerned. “It’s the _best_ kind of pain, doll. Turns my head off. Makes me feel like I’m actually alive again, ya know, not frozen and not so damned old I’m dead. Just follow my lead and trust me to tell you if it’s not working for me, yeah?”

Steve rolls fully on top of him, somehow managing to be careful of the mostly healed points where the new arm and shoulder connect to his actual flesh and bone. Bucky lifts his head to meet him in a kiss and twists his flesh fingers into Steve’s soft hair. He carefully pokes his metal fingers inside the waistband of Steve’s jeans, and they just lie there for a time, kissing and clinging.

“Can I have a little time to think about it>” Steve rests his cheek against Bucky’s collarbone and sighs. “Please. Just...just to see if I can get used to the idea. And maybe to figure out _how_ it’s supposed to work.”

Bucky huffs a sigh. Steve and his damned worrywart tendencies. Oh, he never cared too much about marching Bucky into a fight, before the war or during. Never hesitated to dare him to eat something gross or try some dangerous stunt. Bullied him onto rooftops and over fences, more than once or twice got them both grounded or injured or both. So why did he have to grow up to be cautious _now_ , for God’s sake?

Steve lifts his head and gives Bucky a cool look, like he can read every thought in Bucky’s head, and Bucky laughs and hugs him, giving in. Same as he always does for Steve.

“Okay.” Bucky kisses his hair. “Okay, you win for now. Seriously, though, it’s not rocket science. Loosen asshole, shove in hand. Watch me lose my damn mind. I don’t want...I don’t want to push you, if you’re uncomfortable, okay? So I can wait. Maybe not _patiently_ , but I’ll wait. Still.” Bucky runs one finger down the side of Steve’s neck, right across that thin spot that makes goosebumps jump out all over Steve’s skin. “I’m all slick and loose, and _you_ should lose your jeans and do something about it.”

Steve rolls off of him, laughing again, real this time, warm and easy, and Bucky breaths a silent prayer of thanks. Apparently his own screwed up brain hasn’t scared Stevie away yet. That might be, of course, because Steve’s own head isn’t really any better than Bucky’s. Not that Bucky would care to mention it right then, since he’s about to get fucked through the mattress. 

He thinks. 

He hopes.

Steve doesn’t even bother to get off the bed. He just stands up on the mattress and strips his jeans down his legs. Apparently his body hadn’t stopped being interested when his brain interrupted the part where he had been pushing his hand into Bucky’s ass. He’s hard– _so_ hard he’s nearly purple, and Bucky wants to sit up and get his mouth on it. Steve wobbles his way free of his pants and then gives a demented little shimmy.

“I hope that’s not your idea of a sexy dance, Stevie,” Bucky tells him as he sits up and puts his metal hand on Steve’s hip. Steve shivers, probably from the coolness of the vibranium, and Bucky can feel himself smirking. He smooths his palm across the front of Steve’s belly, from one hip to the other. “Because you might be sexy as hell, but you dance like a frog with a broken leg.”

Steve’s eyes go sharp and calculating, and Bucky barely has time to brace himself before Steve’s on him, over him, rolling Bucky’s knees to his chest, pinning his shoulders to the mattress.

“Where you got that sass from,” he tells Bucky, even as he reaches down to line himself up, “I have no idea, but I am gonna do my best to fuck it right back out of you.”

Bucky glares up at him, opening his mouth to snap, but he loses track of the argument as Steve slides into him in one long, smooth push. It’s _glorious_ , and Bucky can feel the way his already worked-over body opens up easily, letting Steve get deep without any resistance. Steve moans, mouth falling open, eyes half-closing. Bucky reaches up to touch him: his cheeks, his neck, the wide spread of his shoulders. He’s seriously gorgeous, and Bucky wonders if he’s coming around to the idea of being into guys or if the heat that wells up in his belly is all just because it’s Steve. 

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, as a tiny tremor shivers through his body.

“God, that’s incredible,” he whispers. He shifts one of Bucky’s thighs from over his forearm to around his waist and leans down to plant his palm beside Bucky’s head. “The way you just...just let me in. Still so hot, so slick and soft. But, God, Buck! You feel like heaven.”

“Probably more like Hell, Stevie, because that’s probably where we’re heading.” Bucky grins at him, contentment welling up around the feeling of being full of Steve. “This’s probably the deviancy the priest used to talk about.”

“Already been to Hell, Buck.” Steve drops Bucky’s other leg and folds over him, sliding one arm under Bucky’s back. “Watching you fall, living without you, waking up in a place I never thought you would find me. That was Hell. This though–” he rolls his spine in a long, smooth ripple that makes him slide against Bucky’s inner walls in a way that’s absolutely perfect– “this is _nothing_ like Hell. Anywhere you’re with me has _gotta_ be heaven.”

“You’re a sap, Rogers,” Bucky tells him; he can’t stop smiling though, warmed to his core by the blissful contentment on Steve’s face. “But you’re my sap, so I guess it’s okay.”

Steve kisses him silent and starts to move, slower than Bucky wants it, but at least he’s grinding in hard on every thrust. He leans up on his elbow and reaches down to hoist Bucky’s leg higher up his ribs. Then he reaches around it, tracing Bucky’s ass until he can slide a finger in beside his cock. It’s a tight fit, and it burns, and it’s amazing and perfect and wonderful, and Bucky _shouts_ his approval, because he wants Steve to hear how good it is for him. 

“God, you’re so greedy for it, Buck!” Steve pushes himself up onto his knees and easily hefts Bucky’s lower half to shove a pillow or two under his ass. He goes back to fucking with his cock _and_ his finger, and Bucky keeps howling and writhing. 

It’s _soooooo_ good, and he doesn’t care _who_ knows it. Steven G. Rogers is a sex god, and Bucky will always be his most faithful follower. Especially if Steve keeps doing what he’s doing that’s shoving him all up against Bucky’s hottest hot button.

“Bet we could get two pricks up this ass.” Steve wiggles his hand around, and then the stretch gets harder, and Bucky shouts– half from pain, if he’s honest– and plants his feet on the bed to get some friction to shove himself down harder. “You still okay?”

“More, Stevie, please! I want...I want!” Bucky has no idea what he wants, but Steve, wonderful Steve, starts fucking him harder. “Oh shit, yeah! Just like that, Stevie!”

Steve makes a soft little sound and then the stretch is all that Bucky can take.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Steve’s hips stutter and then push in harder. Once. Twice. And then he pushes in hard, and Bucky can feel him pulsing as he comes. Everything is silent and still for a minute, and then Steve takes a shaky breath and pushes himself up on trembling arms to kiss Bucky’s chin. “Shit, I meant to get you there first.”

“‘S okay, Stevie.” Bucky wants to hold him and stroke his hair, kiss his face and tell him how good he is, wants Steve to keep fucking, wants _everything_ , and he wants it all at once. “‘S okay, I’m really close.”

Steve slips out, and then the feeling of fullness and pressure is back and Bucky arches his back and actually _screams_ as his eyes prickle with tears. The pressure against his rim eases, but he feels...he feels full. Completely full. Like he’s solid from ass to head, so stuffed with Steve that nothing else can fit in him: no more wondering about the future, no more fear of the past, no more _anything_ but Steve. He clenches down around the intrusion and moans, hard and loud, feeling like nothing can ever hurt him again.

“There, baby!” Steve starts rubbing circles on Bucky’s belly, and Bucky’s so full he can barely feel anything but his ass. Not that it matters, because his ass is _so damned happy_. “That was the worst of it. I’m in there. Shit, Buck! My hand is _inside your body_! The whole damn thing!”

Bucky can barely hear him over the way the blood is whooshing in his ears. He’s done it. He’s taken a whole hand, and it’s incredible and wonderful and painful and perfect and now Steve needs to get that moving, or Bucky’s going to _die_.

“Fuck...fuck me, Stevie! Make me– oh, God! Make me come!”

Steve apparently takes him at his word, because the feeling of fullness starts moving, and Bucky shrieks again as Steve’s knuckles find his prostate and rub over it again and again. He’d apparently gone soft as Steve worked forward, but then Steve’s wet, hot mouth closes around Bucky’s mostly-limp cock, and it gets right back into the swing of things. Bucky’s mouth is still hanging open from his last cry, but he can’t actually squeeze out any sound. Steve, though, slurping and humming around his cock, is making enough noise for both of them. Bucky grabs Steve’s hair with his flesh hand and the sheets with the metal one and hangs on for dear life. It’s not going to take him long.

And it doesn’t. Steve twists his wrist _just right_ and his tongue presses the head of Bucky’s cock tightly to his soft palate, and then Bucky starts to shake apart, yanking on everything he’s got between his fingers as his vision whites out into static and his balls go tight and then tighter still. Steve swallows and licks, swallows and licks, and Bucky thinks he keeps coming for an hour. Eventually the ringing in Bucky’s ears dies down, and his vision gets less fuzzy. He comes back to himself to find that Steve is kissing his thigh, just tiny tender kisses over the thinnest skin. 

“I’ve got to have my hand back,” he says gently. “Deep breaths and push with me, yeah?”

It’s not a fun process, getting Steve’s thick hand back out of his ass, and Bucky’s quite proud of himself for not hyperventilating as it goes. Steve keeps kissing his leg and then his belly, and occasionally even Bucky’s spent cock as he pulls gently out and away. 

“I’m going to go clean up,” Steve tells him. “I’ll bring you a washcloth, okay?”

Bucky flaps a hand at him. Or, well, he tries to. Mostly all he can manage is flipping his fingers vaguely in Steve’s direction. Some time later, maybe five minutes, maybe five years, Bucky can’t count seconds in his sex-addled state, Steve climbs back into the bed and pulls Bucky back into his arms.

“I wasn’t going to, but you just...the way you looked when I got a couple fingers in there with my prick.” He kisses the shell of Bucky’s ear and then snuggles closer. “I figured I could try and if it worked, then great, and if it didn’t, it’d still feel like an awful lot from your end.”

“Oh, my end felt _so much_.” Bucky tries to give Steve a sexy smirk, but he the best he can come up with is a sex-drugged grin. “So very much of you. So good like that. Thanks, Stevie. Just what I wanted. So...so what I wanted. You. So much of you. Up my ass. Perfect.”

Steve chuckles and kisses his cheek. “You’re welcome, Buck. Glad it...glad it was what you wanted. God, you took it so pretty, too. Your body is amazing.”

Bucky feels himself beaming, even as he closes his eyes to rest for _just a minute._

Steve thinks his body is amazing, even after all it’s done.

*****

Steve can feel Bucky falling asleep in his arms, and he holds still and slows his own breathing to encourage it. He sometimes thinks that Bucky’s trying to sleep enough to make up for all the dreamless years in cryofreeze, all the sleepless days and nights when the Soldier was on a mission and didn’t sleep at all, and all of the sleepless nights during the war together. God knows, even now his sleep isn’t always restful; if he has half the number of nightmares that Steve faces (and Steve suspects Bucky has quite a lot more), nighttime isn’t usually given over to peace. He treasures the times when he can feel Bucky fully relaxed, his body easy and content. When Bucky’s breathing and heartbeat are both steady enough to reassure him that that Bucky’s dreams, if he’s having any, are calm and happy. 

Bucky shuffles slowly in his sleep, rolling over and scooting until his back is pressed tightly to Steve’s chest. Since he’s so close, Steve can kiss the back of his neck and nuzzle into the sex-tangled shag of his hair. It feels strange that all the years and all the miles and all the changes they’ve both been through, and one sniff of Bucky’s skin can make Steve feel just like he’s fifteen years old and experiencing his first erection all over again. Back then, however, his fantasies didn’t go any further than this: curling up together and sleeping very close. Now Steve can’t quite get the image of Bucky spread wide, speared on Steve’s prick and begging for more out of his head. He can’t forget what it looked like, _felt_ like to have the vice-like grip of Bucky’s orgasm around his _whole hand_. He’s pretty sure he’ll hear the way Bucky screamed out Steve’s name when he came that last time until his dying day. He’s also pretty certain that thought will make his groin ache and his stomach feel empty and wanting.

It’s almost painful for him, how badly his body wants Bucky’s body. In his younger days, Steve’s interest focused entirely around Bucky’s beauty, about watching him move and watching the flicker of emotions across his face (Steve will _never_ be able to erase the first flash of horror on Bucky’s face when Steve asked him if he’d gotten his orders, that last time Bucky rescued him from a fight in an alley). Steve still isn’t certain if it’s the serum or just his experience with sex since those innocent young days that makes him want so badly. Maybe it’s just Bucky, muscular and beautiful and _alive_ after so, so many years apart. Maybe it’s just the relief of having someone he’s allowed to work off his body’s needs with. 

Whatever it is, Steve can’t resist touching his lips to the back of Bucky’s neck again and pressing his spent prick against Bucky’s naked ass. Even without the urgency of erection, Bucky’s skin feels _incredible_ against him, and he can’t resist the urge to grind. Just a little bit. Bucky murmurs in his sleep and reaches back with his metal hand to grab Steve’s hip and hold him close. The shift creates just enough friction to make Steve gasp, and he can’t help rocking forward– only a little bit– to feel it again. 

“If you’re expecting something to happen,” Bucky mumbles, and it sounds to Steve like he’s smiling, “you’re gonna to have to do it to me rather than with.” He wiggles like he’s settling himself further into the mattress and pillow. “‘Cause I’m gonna keep sleeping, ‘kay?”

Steve chuckles and kisses the back of his ear.

“You do that, Buck.” He kisses the side of Bucky’s neck. “I’m going to get up for a bit. You’ll be okay?”

“C’n take car’a myself.” Bucky says. Then he mumbles something that Steve can’t catch.

“Huh?” Steve pushes up to his elbow so he can lean over toward Bucky’s lips.

“Said _I don’ needja to hold my dick, punk._ ” 

It’s followed immediately by a soft almost-snore, and Steve hurries to get off the bed before he starts laughing. Bucky’s always been both blunt and strange when he’s asleep; even the serum, the Soldier, and a few too many decades haven’t changed that. Steve pulls on a pair of soft pants and then stops at the doorway to look back at Bucky’s sprawled limbs and tangled hair. His face is soft, easy in sleep, The lines around his eyes curling upward for a change. Like he’s happy. Like he feels safe. Like he got what he wanted, and he’s still feeling smug even in his sleep.

Steve’s heart gives another of those giant, breath-stealing thumps, and he quickly goes back to grab his sketchbook from the nightstand. Maybe a little drawing will get his head back where it belongs.

Two hours later, Steve realizes that his brain is going nowhere good, and he tries to cut it off. The page in front of him is mostly covered in tiny sketches of Bucky’s face. Mostly Bucky’s face. There are a few of the shoulders on him, back when Steve first pulled the mask off of the Winter Soldier, cold menace pouring off of him like mist over a river. In one corner of the paper, Bucky curls into the floor, metal arm blown off, pain and fear written all over the sliver of his face that peers out from the curtain of his hair. Above him, Peggy stares at him with loss and longing written all over her face, the way she’d looked the last time Steve’d seen her before he went into the ice. Across the top are tiny sketches of his teammates– Commandos and Avengers– fighting as they’re surrounded by explosions. The center of the page is another sketch of Bucky’s face, eyes closed as if in sleep. Steve knows, though, that he’s frozen, or maybe dead, and that it’s an image from the depths of Steve’s nightmares. 

He’s lost everything. _Everything_

...except for Bucky. 

“Stevie?” 

Steve starts at the soft voice, having been so lost in his head that he hadn’t heard Bucky’s footsteps in the hall. He’s surprised by how close Bucky’s gotten to him, close enough that his extended hand– the flesh one– is just an inch from Steve’s shoulder. He’s wearing one of Steve’s most worn-out t-shirts and a pair of flannel pants, and he looks warm and sleep-rumpled.

“You okay, doll?” Bucky closes the gap and cups Steve’s jaw in his palm, studying his face carefully before he leans down to kiss Steve’s cheekbone. “Looks like you’re thinking too much again.”

“No, I…” Steve looks down at the page he’s covered with a century of loss. “I mean it’s…” He has no idea how to explain himself.

“What’d His Majesty say to get you so worked up?” Bucky slides onto the couch beside Steve and carefully takes the notebook out of his hands. He folds it closed and places it on the floor with a reverence that reminds Steve that Bucky alone knows how important drawing is to him. “I’m assuming that’s what has you drawing every bad thing that’s ever happened to you, anyway.”

“It’s not–”

Bucky cuts him off by touching the tip of one metal fingertip to Steve’s lips.

“You’re either going to tell me, or I’m going to badger you until you tell me.” Bucky leans back and wraps both of his arms around Steve’s shoulders. “And then you’ll be even madder, and I’ll still know. So you really should just do it the easy way.”

Steve nuzzles in under the edge of Bucky’s jaw, nose and lips catching on the shadow of whiskers that darkens his pale skin. It feels surprisingly good, so he closes his eyes and just rubs his lips back and forth for a minute, soaking in the warmth of Bucky’s chest and the cool of the metal fingers that Bucky keeps running through his hair. 

“I don’t think he meant it,” Steve answers finally. “I mean, he didn’t _say_ so much, but I got the feeling that he thinks I’m...I’m not good for you. Or that I can’t be good for you, after everything _I’ve_ been through. And that’s...that’s ridiculous. I can take care of you, Buck. I _will_ take care of you.”

Bucky hums thoughtfully and kisses Steve’s forehead. 

“You don’t have to, you know.” 

Steve pushes up to scowl at him, but Bucky’s lips just quirk in the same kind of smile he’s always given when he thinks Steve is being ridiculous.

“What do you _mean_ I don’t have to?” Steve pulls out of Bucky’s embrace and folds his arms over his chest. “It’s my–” Steve cuts himself off from saying _job_ and finishes with “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

To Bucky and Steve, _jobs_ mean _missions_ , and to Bucky, _mission_ means killing someone. Not a comparison Steve thinks would be appreciated right now.

“No it’s not.” Bucky just leans closer and puts his arms back around Steve’s shoulders. “What you’re supposed to do is to just be you. Means you’ve gotta trust me to take care of myself.”

“I _do_ , Buck.” Steve lets himself be pulled in and held again. “I mean, It’s just that…”

Just _what_ , though? Steve _does_ trust Bucky. He can see how well he’s doing, how strong he is at facing his past and hoping for a future. Maybe. Steve’s not sure about the future part just yet. But Bucky’s dealing. He just...he doesn’t seem ready to leave the limbo of cryosleep, and Steve has to find a way to help him with that. Nothing else matters until Bucky feels strong enough to face the world. Helping him do that _is_ Steve’s job.

“So what _exactly_ did he say that has you so…like this?” Bucky keeps stroking over Steve’s hair, fingers tugging lightly where they catch on a few stray tangles. 

Steve sighs hard and shifts around until he can look Bucky in the eye.

“That I’m running away from problems instead of dealing with my past.”

Bucky gives that little hum again and then his lips curl in a bright, crooked smile. “I coulda told you that, Stevie. But it’s okay. As long as they don’t catch up.”

Steve kisses him, and Bucky melts down to the couch, pulling Steve on top of him, and Steve thinks they’re done talking. He’s good with being done talking. Bucky’s legs fall open as Steve stretches out on top of him, and Steve can feel him hard in his sweatpants, and Steve’s body quickly starts to respond in kind. Maybe that’s why Steve’s libido is so active around Buck; Bucky acts like he can’t get enough, and Steve will always do his best to give Bucky anything he wants, everything he needs. Steve starts humping in earnest, only slightly embarrassed by the thought of making yet another mess in his pants, and Bucky moans under him, sucking on Steve’s tongue.

Just as the first shivers of orgasm start to build at the base of Steve’s spine, Bucky pushes him off and away. 

“I want on top,” he says, voice rough and low, and Steve flings himself backward, only flinching a little when his head smacks against the arm of the couch. 

He wiggles lower, until his back is flat, one leg flung up the back of the couch, one hanging off toward the floor. Bucky grins at him, sharp and dangerous, and climbs over him, getting them back into a good position to get back to where they were. Steve closes his eyes and just _feels_ : the hard grind of Bucky’s prick against his own; Bucky’s hot breath on his face; the way Buck forces his metal hand under Steve’s hips and inside the back of his pants. It’s not going to take long now.

“Problem with pasts like ours, Stevie,” Buck dips his head to bite the side of Steve’s neck before continuing, “is that they always find us again. They’re impossible to outrun. Hell, I tried and ended up getting half the Avengers thrown into some creepy superprison.”

Steve’s brain stutters even as his hips keep thrusting rhythmically up against Bucky’s body.

_Now?!_ he wants to ask, but he can’t, because Bucky’s devouring his mouth again, all teeth and tongue and wet, sloppy passion. He does manage to force out a grunt of protest.

“Seriously, Stevie.” Bucky breaks out of the kiss and leans his forehead on Steve’s, panting hard. “If we’re going to fix my brain, we should probably try to fix some of your nightmares, too. Sam is probably a good place to start.” 

Bucky kisses him again, and Steve wants to protest, but he can’t. His prick feels too good with Bucky grinding down against it, and his head is spinning from Bucky’s kisses, and he has a vague feeling like he should be angry, but he can’t quite manage it while Bucky continues to drive his body along like a damn racecar heading toward the final lap.

“Once we get your legal problems and his legal problems and all of that mess sorted out, we’ll talk to him about what you need to do.” Bucky reaches down further, until the now-skin-warmed finger of his metal hand finds the edge of Steve’s hole, and Steve lets out a strangled wheeze. “We’ll talk to T’Challa about the legal stuff tomorrow.”

“Buck, we...I...this…” _Not the time, Buck_ Steve tries to say, but his orgasm hits him like a truck, and all he can do is shake and squeeze Bucky around the ribs and shake some more.

“But we’ll talk about it later.” Bucky kisses his cheek and pushes himself up to kneel over Steve. He grins and shoves his pants down just far enough to get his flesh hand on his own cock, jerking it frantically in tight, short strokes. “Right now, I’m going to– ah ah _ah!_ ”

He starts to spray on Steve’s chest, just a few bolts of hot, sticky white, and Steve just watches him, brain and body both sluggish with pleasure. 

“Okay, Buck,” he says, not entirely certain what he’s agreeing to, but positive that he’ll go along with anything Bucky says. Especially while they’re fucking. “That’ll be good.”

Bucky starts to laugh and collapses slowly against Steve’s bare chest, his t-shirt soaking up the mess as he lands. 

“That’s right, Stevie,” he says, kissing Steve’s jaw between words. “You just keep agreeing with me, and everything’ll be just fine.”

*****

Bucky’s pretty proud of himself for managing Steve. Does the idiot really think that he’s immune to...to shellshock or PTSD or whatever it is that they’re calling it these days? From what Bucky can tell, the whole world is finally starting to talk about it, and that’s a good thing. He knows from his reading and internet exploration that his and Steve’s generation didn’t do such a good job of recovering after they came back. Maybe he and Steve are lucky they spent so much time on ice, waking up a world that actually cares about soldiers that came back wrong. _Especially_ Bucky, since he’s pretty sure he came back from the war wrongest of all of them. 

He pushes himself off of Steve’s body, scowling when his t-shirt sticks to both of them. He peels it off over his head and then pulls his pants back up to make himself decent. It seems _those_ missed the aftermath of sloppy sex. 

“You should shower, doll.” He leans down to kiss Steve’s pretty mouth, taking his time and tracing the edges of those lips, Steve’s perfect teeth, with the tip of his tongue. Steve kisses back, all sweet and soft, and Bucky feels himself start to melt. “You should shower and then come to the kitchen for something to eat. And _then_ we can get back to this.”

“ _Je_ sus, Buck.” Steve sits up slowly and scrubs his hands through his hair. “You’re going to kill me. Don’t you ever get enough?”

“That’s rich,” Bucky answers, catching Steve’s hands to drag him to his feet, “coming from you.” He kisses Steve one more time. “But I meant we could get back to the conversation.”

“Sure you did.” Steve pulls him close and kisses him again. 

“Maybe a little bit of the sex.” Bucky shrugs, unapologetic. “I’ll suck you after we eat.”

Steve gives Bucky a look, something torn between amused, irritated, and aroused. “Don’t beat around the bush, there, Bucky.”

“Not worth it, Stevie.” Bucky kisses him once more, getting a good grip on Steve’s ass. “You know you’ve got me, and I know I’ve got you, so why should I be coy?”

“Jerk.” Steve initiates the next kiss, and it goes for awhile. 

“Punk.” Bucky squeezes gently with both of his hands and then backs away, reluctantly letting go. “You stink of sex. Go get clean, and then I’ll feed you up. After that, you can feed me real good.”

“Really _well_ ,” Steve corrects as he heads toward the hall. “God, Buck, your grammar…”

He walks away, muttering about Bucky’s abuse of their native tongue, and Bucky goes toward the kitchen to find some food or a menu for the kitchens. Either way, so long as it gets Steve’s belly filled up so he’ll be in a good mood for the next part of their conversation. 

Steve has _got_ to figure out that he’s no longer ten pounds of rage in a five pound sack. He’s not the underdog, the little guy, and he’s no longer getting sand kicked in his face. He can choose what to champion because the thing needs him, not because he needs the thing. And he needs to stop wasting his time trying to take up causes that don’t matter in the long run. Bucky accepted being Steve’s mission when Steve showed up for him in Bucharest. He didn’t _like_ it, of course, but he accepted it, because he will always try to give Steve what he needs. He’d also accepted it because he’d discovered that his happy mental picture of Steve being in the bosom of a loving team that would understand him and look after him and love him hadn’t been entirely accurate.

Steve _has_ to get himself together. This homeless hero bit he’s playing is going to get on Bucky’s last nerve, he can already tell. Steve has always needed consistency, or he tends to get scattered. Much of the world sees Steve Rogers as Captain America: War Hero. The guy who used to lead the Avengers. The man who took down SHIELD and wiped out a bunch of HYDRA cells. Bucky, though, knows better. He knows Steve the artist with the artistic temperament and moods, the guy who looks for patterns where none exist and goes a little weird when he can’t figure out what’s going on. The guy who never did learn to say no to a fight, even though he’s gotten so big he’s bound to win them all. Bucky loves him unconditionally, for damn sure, but he doesn’t always find Steve particularly _likeable_.

Lickable, maybe…

Bucky only realizes he’s gotten distracted when his bare toes get cold from the air pouring out of the open refrigerator. He closes the door and turns to the in-house phone to call an order for room service. 

Anyway. 

First Bucky needs to get Steve to admit that he’s got a problem. Several problems, and none of them are new. Then he needs Steve to admit that he has a hard time facing his problems and _then_ agree to fixing them. Nothing too difficult for Bucky. Just about on par with breaking his own brainwashing and getting used to having sex with a man (okay, so that last part had been almost laughably easy). Of course, Steve’s such a coward when it comes to _feelings_ , it’s going to be one _helluva_ task to get him moving in the right direction.

Good thing Bucky has leverage. 

After they’ve filled themselves up with good things from T’Challa’s kitchen staff, Bucky leads Steve to the weird chair with the curvy footstool, strips him bare, and then drapes himself between Steve’s legs. He’s not sure exactly when he went from wondering how girls could stand to do this to loving it, but _damn_ does he love sucking Steve off. Can’t get enough of the feeling of smooth skin and the taste of the salty drips that leak out as Steve starts to get close, can’t get enough of the little whimpers that Steve makes and the sharp tug of his hands in Bucky’s hair. He’s drooling enough to soak Steve’s balls, and he alternates hands, keeping his metal hand held wide to cool off when he’s playing with Steve’s sac with his flesh fingers; touching with cold vibranium makes Steve cry out and writhe.

“You’re getting so damned good at that, Buck.” Steve arches his back and gasps, his words coming out sharp and tight. “If I didn’t know you’d been in the pod, I’d wonder who you were stepping out with.”

Bucky retaliates by pulling off and putting one smooth metal finger into his own mouth. He licks and sucks at it until he’s certain it’s wet enough, and then he pushes Steve’s legs wider and slowly, steadily pushes his fingertip into Steve’s ass. Steve arches his back and shouts, and Bucky twists his hand, feeling around until he can feel Steve’s prostate. Steve cries out again, and Bucky grins up at him before he leans forward and sucks the head of Steve’s cock back between his lips. 

“Fuck, you look good like that.” Steve’s clearly trying to play cool, but his chest and stomach are glistening with sweat, and he sounds like he can barely hold himself together enough to speak. “Your lips all stretched around me. Fuck, such a pretty mouth, Bucky. Good thing I didn’t know about suck jobs back when we were teens, or I’d have begged you to give me one. Never could stop staring at your mouth. Swear I drew it at least ten times a day.”

Bucky hums happily to himself: Steve wants this, for damn sure, and Bucky loves giving him what he wants. Most of the time. Not when what Steve wants to sulk and shut himself away from the world. Bucky sucks a little harder and thinks about what it’d be like to do _this_ somewhere else. Maybe in a real apartment with the sounds of the city outside. _God_ , Bucky misses the sounds of New York. Sirens. People. Cars humming around all hours of the day and night. The invisibility provided by being one face in a crowd. 

Something he does with his tongue or his hand must really get Steve’s motor revving, because he suddenly grabs Bucky’s hair and starts thrusting up into his mouth. Bucky lets his jaw go slack and just takes it, timing his breathing with the intrusion against his soft palate, swallowing hard to keep from choking. Steve’s grip tightens harder, and Bucky’s eyes start to water, but he holds his head still and rubs faster with his fingertip. It only takes a few seconds for Steve to lose it, hips stuttering as he sprays across Bucky’s tongue, slipping a bit so that some leaks out of Bucky’s mouth, one last spurt landing on his cheek.

Steve melts down into the chair when he’s done, and Bucky wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands up to start peeling off his own clothing. 

“Your turn, Stevie.” He pushes his pants down his legs and runs his metal hand from his own groin to his chest, shivering as he brushes his nipple on the way by. “You’re gonna get me off, and then I’ll get you there again.”

“Gimme a minute to catch my breath!” Steve grins up at him, eyes half-closed and chest heaving. 

“No, doll.” Bucky leans down to take both of Steve’s hands in his own. “You’re gonna come lie down with me on the bed, and you can get your breath back while I work you open so I can fuck you.”

Bucky plays for at least half an hour before he finally slides home in Steve’s ass. They’re still stretched on the bed, side by side with Steve’s back pressed tightly against Bucky’s chest. He’s sobbing by the time Bucky is fully seated, and Bucky lightly wraps one hand around Steve’s jaw, turning his head to kiss him. He starts to move, barely grinding in, and Steve flails until Bucky catches his wrist in his own metal fingers, folding their arms both around Steve’s chest. He rolls backward, pulling Steve with him as he goes, still kissing along the side of his neck, the tip of his ear, the sharp hinge of his jaw.

“God, you feel good to me, doll.” Bucky reaches up with his flesh hand to grab Steve’s hair and hold on tightly. “So hot, so welcoming, like you were just made for me to fuck. Like no one else should ever have been here, should ever be here again. Just mine.”

“Yours, Buck,” Steve gasps, and Bucky reaches down to see if he’s hard again yet. He’s not, but Bucky can be patient. “Just yours now. Promise, baby. Gonna stay yours.”

“That’s right, Stevie.” Bucky practically croons the words into Steve’s ear, metal hand rubbing slow circles on Steve’s belly while he fucks into Steve’s ass gently. “You’re gonna be mine, and gonna take care of yourself so you can stay that way. Stay with me. Not leave me alone in the future, yeah?”

“Anything, Buck. Anything you need. Promise.” Steve’s breath is sobbing in his throat now, and Bucky wriggles an inch lower in the bed and thrusts up hard, knowing he’s gotten the angle right when Steve nearly breaks his nose, throwing his head back to shout. “God, yes, Buck! Feel so good in me!”

“Yeah, I do,” Bucky agrees, and then he bites hard on Steve’s shoulder and gives three more hard, sharp jerks upward into Steve’s body. “Feels _incredible_. Best I ever had. If I’da known it’d be like this, I’d have had you back before the war, back when you were in my bed every night. Wouldn’t have bothered looking elsewhere. Wouldn’ta needed any dame. Just you, doll. Always just you.”

Steve gives another sob and starts shaking, so Bucky wraps both of his arms tightly around Steve’s body– one over his ribs, the other around his shoulders– and holds on hard. 

“I’m so glad it’s you, Stevie. You’ll never know how glad I am that I woke up to find you.” He kisses the side of Steve’s neck even as his own eyes get hot with unshed tears. “‘D rather have you with me now, you know that? No one else will ever know me like you do. No one else I’ll ever know well enough to trust like I do you.”

Steve starts openly crying, but he spreads his legs wider to give Bucky more room to fuck him harder, and Bucky reaches down to check again, gratified to find Steve’s cock growing thicker in his hand. He keeps his metal arm locked around Steve’s chest, holding him as close as he can while he starts to fuck harder, trying to match the strokes of his flesh hand with his hips. Steve reaches up and back to tangle his fingers in Bucky’s long shag of hair, and Bucky turns his head to kiss Steve’s wrist, then his neck again, then his shoulder. 

“When we’re done here,” it’s getting hard to speak, but Bucky needs to say this before he finishes either of them off, “we’re going to have a real talk about what you need to do to be okay, doll. You’re going to promise me that you’re going to take care of yourself, yeah? I need you to, Steve. I need you to look after yourself, for when I can’t be here, doing this.” He gives another hard snap with his hips, and Steve cries out again. “Promise me, Stevie. Promise me you will.”

“Anything, Buck,” Steve gasps. “Of course, anything!”

“Good.” Bucky bites down hard on Steve’s shoulder again and sets to working them both to orgasm. When he’s close, goosebumps breaking out over his own chest and arm, he releases his teeth to whisper in Steve’s ear. “I love you, Stevie.”

And that’s all it takes for Steve’s back to try to arch against the vice that is Bucky’s metal arm around him, and he clenches and releases hard, erratically, until his ass milks the orgasm out of Bucky, too. 

“That’s it, Stevie,” Bucky says to him as they come down together. He kisses Steve’s sweat-damp hair and the shell of his ear. “That’s it. I love you, doll.”

*****

They’re still in bed an hour later, neither one sleeping, just lying next to each other, fingers barely linked together. 

“I don’t know when everything got so...so messed up.” Steve hears his own voice before he realized he was going to start talking. “I mean, it’s been pretty much one big fuckup since…” He trails off, not sure when it all went to hell.

“Since birth, I think.” Bucky rolls toward him and strokes his metal fingertips down Steve’s chest. They’re cold against his skin, but Steve thinks it’s a sensation he could get used to, one that he could grow to love. Quickly. “Stevie, doll, everything that’s happened has just grown right out of who you are. Who you’ve _always_ been. And that’s okay. Because you’re just...you’re just you, and that’s all you can be, I think. Is all I want you to be, anyway.”

“Look what I did to my...my team, though.” Steve feels like he’s choking, and Bucky scoots closer, the cool metal of his arm draping across Steve’s chest. “I mean, maybe I should have…”

“Should have what, Stevie?” Bucky pushes himself up onto his elbow to look down at Steve’s face. “Forced them to sign the Accords? Signed them yourself against your own conscience? Not...not come to my rescue?”

“I had to.” Steve reaches up to cup the side of Bucky’s face. “Buck, I _had_ to.”

“Course you did.” Bucky snorts. “You _shouldn’t_ have, but you did. Because that’s just _who you are_. You try harder’n anybody I’ve ever known. To do the right thing, I mean. ‘Cept maybe Peggy. And from what I’ve heard, even she messed up once in a while. Like letting HYDRA in the door at SHIELD.”

“If she’d known–” Steve starts to defend her honor and her legacy, and Bucky cuts him off by touching his metal fingertip to Steve’s lips.

“Exactly.” Bucky shakes his head. “You’re not getting it. You can do _exactly_ the right thing, and still have it all crash down around you. You always have, Stevie. You’ve always done exactly what you think is right, and I’m not making a judgement call on any of your decisions. But I will tell you that you don’t have to fight so hard all the time. Sometimes you need to just...just accept it. Accept things that sometimes shit goes wrong and it’s not all on you to fix it.”

He leans down and kisses Steve’s lips, mouth soft and tender. 

“Turn off your brain, doll, and just be with me right now, yeah?”

It’s easier after that, easier to let go of his guilt and his constantly evolving plans for his team’s redemption. He has Bucky’s mouth against his, and Bucky is bare and sleek and turned on in his arms. Maybe Bucky’s right, and maybe Steve doesn’t have to try to hold it all up on his own anymore. Maybe, now that he’s got his Bucky back, by his side, in his bed, in his arms, maybe he can put it all down for a little while. Maybe Bucky’ll even help him carry it.

Steve pulls Bucky closer and sets about trying to forget the world outside of Bucky’s embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go, and I DO need to get my kitchen clean at some point before it starts growing science experiments. So I can't promise it'll be up tomorrow night, but I'll do my best!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve starts to relax, and Bucky isn't sure if it's from their ongoing talks about all Steve went through, or if it's from his obvious delight in watching Bucky's confidence and well-being grow. Whatever the reason, Bucky starts to think that maybe they'll both be okay eventually. Maybe well enough to resume some kind of life outside the palace walls.

*****

Bucky starts his physical therapy grudgingly at first, but by the end of the first session he's eager to go back each day. Instead of the pointless little tasks he's read about on the internet, he finds himself doing things like learning to braid hair and playing a piano. He kinda likes the way his metal fingertips click against the keys, even if he can't manage more than Mary Had A Little Lamb, yet. 

The second half of each session involves sparring with one of T’Challa's elite guards, and it's surprisingly fun. The women among them fight dirtier than the men, and Bucky eagerly asks them to train him on several of the moves he’s never seen before. His appetite picks up with the increase in physical activity, and Steve finally joins him on the mats, complaining that he can't let Bucky get ahead of him in physical condition. Sparring with well-trained soldiers is fun, but with Steve, Bucky can really let loose. 

When they grapple, it's more like a finely choreographed dance, violence distilled into art. They occasionally bloody each other up, and they always end bruised and aching. It's glorious, and so is the sex that follows when they take joint showers to wash away the sweat and damage. 

Steve starts to relax, and Bucky isn't sure if it's from their ongoing talks about all Steve went through, or if it's from his obvious delight in watching Bucky's confidence and well-being grow. Whatever the reason, Bucky starts to think that maybe they'll both be okay eventually. Maybe well enough to resume some kind of life outside the palace walls. 

Bucky waits a week before asking Steve to try to remember the words, and Steve grudgingly says them. It's different now for Bucky. He's not as far under, and he manages to resist Steve's orders to hold still and pose for nearly a full minute before the screaming in his brain makes him comply. When he comes to, he's lying on the floor with his head resting on Steve's thigh, the scratching of Steve's drawing pencil in his ears telling him that everything is fine. He rolls over and kisses the tip of Steve's elbow and then closes his eyes to soak in the peace. 

That night, they make love slowly and tenderly, pushing each other to the edge over and over and backing off to make it last. 

“When my brain is fixed,” Bucky says, rolling onto his back and pulling Steve back in with his legs, “when we know it's safe for me to go out, we should look for a place together. Somewhere we can go and just...just be people.”

Steve pushes back into his body with a soft moan of pleasure and leans down to kiss Bucky's lips. 

“Sounds good, baby.” He moves, slow and deep and perfect, and Bucky arches into his chest with a cry. “Maybe we can find somewhere that...that needs us.”

He's not getting it, clearly: Bucky doesn't want to be needed, doesn't want Steve to don the cowl and the shield again. He wants them both to have the life that the war and the serum and HYDRA and the Avengers took from them. But Steve moves again, another long, slow thrust, and Bucky puts the fight away for a time when pleasure is less pressing. 

He pulls Steve closer and rocks his hips up to meet the next slow thrust. They've both been hard for so long, wanting and taking and giving, that it's easy to fall into a rhythm that will carry them both to orgasm quickly. Bucky comes first, shaking and holding Steve tightly to his chest, and Steve follows minutes later, muffling his shout against Bucky's flesh shoulder. 

They lie tangled together in the dark afterward, exchanging lazy kisses and soft words until they both fall asleep, still naked in the cool night air and holding close to each other for warmth. 

*****

Bucky has something on his mind, Steve's sure of it. He knows he's got to get a message to Tony soon and go, but he just can't leave until he knows what thoughts are churning away in Bucky's pretty head. He has to know that, when he leaves, he has Bucky to come back to. The insecurity after the last time nearly killed him, and he can't tell if Bucky's feelings have changed-- have _deepened_ \-- or if it's just wishful thinking. Problem is, Steve has no idea how to start the conversation, so he just stands around trying to look hopeful to see if Bucky can read his mind. 

“Whatever it is,” Bucky says over breakfast one morning, “you might as well just say it. Even if it comes out wrong, you can always keep going until I understand.”

“Just,” Steve puts down his fork and licks his lips. Bucky's watching him with his head tipped a little to one side, lips curved into his softest smile, and it's so distracting that Steve nearly forgets what he wants to say. “I have to leave before long. Maybe another week? And I don't know how long I'll be. I need to...need to check on my half of the team, you know? Make sure they're all safe. And then Tony, and...I don't know when I'll come back.”

“I know.” Bucky reaches out and curls his warm hand over Steve's knuckles. “It's okay, doll. I'll be here when you come back, yeah? I'll be waiting for you.”

“Okay, but…” Steve takes a deep breath and then throws himself into the discussion. He's _not_ running from his problems. Not anymore. At least not this one. “But how? I mean, if I'm gone...well. Will you...will you be...still be...mine?”

Bucky laughs, shoulders easy and shaking with it. 

“Ya know, for someone so smart, you're not very bright sometimes, Rogers.” He stands up and slinks around the table, thighs flexing under the hems of his too-short boxers. “I'll be yours forever, Stevie.” He drops down to straddle Steve's lap and loops his bare arms around Steve's neck. 

Bucky's gotten more comfortable with his body since he started sparring, and it's both wonderful for Steve's heart and hell on his libido. A lapful of underwear-clad sniper is about more than Steve's pants can take; he's instantly hard and trying very hard not to get distracted by the want welling up in the pit of his stomach.

“I'm always yours, Stevie.” Bucky scoots further up Steve's thighs. “Never was one for, ya know, falling in love and dreaming about forever. Most I ever hoped for was finding a girl I liked pretty well who got along with you. But I always knew I was stuck with you and you were stuck with me. For awhile there, when you were making eyes at Peggy, I kinda thought maybe I should try a little harder to settle down. But I didn't really expect to survive the war, ya know? But now I have you back, and we've got each other, and the sex is great. So I've got everything I need right here.”

Steve kisses him then, splaying both his hands wide across the small of Bucky's back. They fit together so well, mouths molding to each other like they've been kissing for decades, arms and chests conforming to each other's bodies like two puzzle pieces clicking into place. Steve slips one hand into the back of Bucky's boxers, using the grip he gets on Bucky's ass to pull him close enough to hump, just a little. Just enough to let them both feel how good they are together. 

“I love you, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, breaking the kiss and leaning in until his lips brush Steve's earlobe. “Most I can love anybody, most I've ever wanted to. If you're okay with...with giving up romance and babies and all that stuff. Then you have me. You're...You're my best friend, my buddy, closest thing I've got to family. And now you're my lover, too. It's just about perfect, doll. Just exactly everything.”

“But?” Steve asks, the word dragged out of him by the fear that won't quite let go of his heart. “What aren't you saying, Buck?”

“But I don't want to be with Captain Fucking America.” Bucky leans back, still holding tightly to Steve's shoulders. His eyes are bright and a little damp. “I want _Steve_. My Steve. To myself for a change. I know you've gotta check on your friends, I'm not arguing that. But, damnit, Stevie, I want you to drop the goddamned shield for a bit and just...just be Steve. Just stay with me for awhile. Just...Just be mine. You've already given the world everything it's asked of you and more. I'm not saying don't ever answer the call. I'm just...I'm just asking you to try it. To try to be with _me_ for a time. Let me enjoy you. Let yourself enjoy life.”

“I...I don't know if I can, Buck.” Steve closes his eyes and feels Bucky rest their foreheads together, sharing air and the intimate space between them that doesn't feel like any distance at all. “I never...never did learn how to back down, ya know?”

“Course I know that, punk.” Bucky shifts and Steve feels a soft kiss press to each of his eyelids. “I’ve known that since we were kids. And I love that about you as much as I hate what it means. Just...we’ve both lost so much, Stevie. I thought maybe that...that when you left the shield with...with T-Tony that maybe you meant it. Maybe you were done. And then you came back here, came back to me, and you...you say you love me Stevie. Please, if you mean that, then just...just rest for a bit, yeah?”

Thinking about not being in the thick of things makes Steve’s skin twitch. He thinks of lazy nights at...at something like a home, maybe never fighting again, and he’s not sure he can stand the possibility of inaction. And then he thinks of those same nights with Bucky in his arms, in his bed, in his heart, and suddenly, just like that, maybe he can do it. Maybe he can actually give it up and just...stay home. Just be with Bucky. Draw some, paint a little, make love to his gorgeous boyfriend. Watch the shadows fade and the nightmares ease as time passes. It’s not an unappealing picture, and it’s not like they’d never go, if the call came in. For all that Bucky might protest, he feels the obligation of his abilities every bit as much as Steve does.

When he was drafted, Bucky didn’t hesitate. He just got his card in the mail and carried himself off to sign up. After the UN fiasco, when he’d known where Zemo was going, Bucky had pulled on his tac pants and been ready to go before they’d figured out how to get to Siberia. If the call came, Bucky wouldn’t hold Steve back, and he wouldn’t let him go alone.

So all Steve would need to do would be to stop going out looking for trouble. Maybe spend his nights watching movies on the couch with Bucky draped across his chest instead of watching the news for the first signs of superpowered danger. Not much of a sacrifice, for what he’d be getting instead.

Steve lets out a huge sigh and wraps Bucky more tightly with his arms. Yeah, he can give it up, at least for now, if that’s what Bucky needs from him. He doesn’t say it yet, though. Not just yet. Just in case he’s wrong.

“But you’re mine?” He can hear how plaintive his voice comes out and kind of hates himself for it. 

“Stevie, doll.” Bucky tips Steve’s face up with both hands and kisses his lips gently. “ _That_ has never been in question. Even before you stuck your cock up my ass.”

Steve can feel himself blushing, and Bucky kisses his cheeks and chuckles gently. 

“Now,” Bucky slides backward and stands up, “that’s enough feelings and sharing. Let’s go down to the gym and get all hot and sweaty so we can come back up here and fuck. Winner on the mats picks the position.”

“Oh, you’re on, Wiener Soldier.”

“Bring it, Star-Spangled Pooper.”

They trade schoolboy jibes all the way through dressing for a sparring match and then down to the gymnasium. They step in the door and both of them freeze for a long second before Steve remembers his manners and bows low to the man that's waiting for them, looking entirely too relaxed in his sleek black armor.

“Majesty.” He grins up at the king and feels his heart speed up, hoping that a new challenge is waiting for them. 

“Captain. Sergeant.” T’Challa pushes back his cowl and grins. “I thought perhaps you would both like a _real_ challenge for a change. One on one on one.”

“Always did like playing with kittens,” Bucky drawls, stretching his neck to the right until it pops. “Sounds like fun!”

*****

“You okay?” Steve's amusement can be heard over the rush of the water, and Bucky isn’t quite ready to forgive him for laughing. Not yet. At least not until the swelling in his jaw goes down enough that he doesn't look like a lopsided chipmunk. “Come on, Buck, that was hilarious. You'd have laughed if it'd been me.”

If it'd been Steve, he wouldn't have tripped over his own damn feet and tried to break his own jaw after winning the three-way fight. 

“Come on, pal.” Steve presses tightly against Bucky's back, kissing the side of his neck and stroking his fingers just right along the ridges of Bucky's hip bones. “You punched yourself right in the face. And nearly knocked yourself out. With your _right hand_. That was almost as awesome as when you gave your first suck job.”

“I'll punch you in the dick again if you don't drop it,” Bucky mutters, but he leans back into the warm cradle of Steve's embrace anyway, tilting his head so Steve has easier access to the side of his neck. 

They're sharing a shower back in their rooms, and Bucky is mostly very pleased with the match in the gym. He'd gotten Steve to tap out early by pinning him to the mat with his metal arm and half-suffocating him with his thighs. T'Challa had been a tougher challenge, since he didn't feel the same need to go easy that Steve had. He'd gotten out his claws after a bit of easy wrestling, and Bucky didn't even mind the loss of the shirt he'd been wearing. Especially with the way Steve’s face had gone flushed and hungry from the sidelines when he'd seen Bucky's bare chest.

It'd taken at least twenty minutes for Bucky to maneuver T'Challa into a place where strength beat agility, but he'd done it at last. Unfortunately, he'd been unable to resist showboating, just a little, after he released his grip on T'Challa's neck. 

That had been his downfall; he’d had both hands up, jumping around just a little, when he caught his heel on the edge of a mat and gone down flailing. Steve wasn't wrong; it had to have looked hysterical from the outside. Still, Steve didn't have to laugh so hard he'd had to sit down and wheeze. 

“Well, gorgeous,” Steve whispers, his breath cool against the shower-wet skin of Bucky's shoulder, “you won fair and square. So tell me how you want me.”

Bucky turns in his arms and takes a kiss, sucking at the fullness of Steve’s bottom lip.

“How about you put that mouth of yours to work and then we'll see where we end up?”

Steve grins at him, challenging and sharp, and goes to his knees immediately. It's easy enough for Bucky to forget his wounded pride and his wounded face after that. He strokes Steve's wet hair and the soft angle of his cheekbones, the broad stretch of his shoulders and the thick column of his neck, and he doesn't think of anything in particular except how _good_ it is to be there with Steve. 

Later, when he has Steve shaking apart in his hand, Bucky realizes something: the feeling that's bubbled up in his chest is happiness. Pure contentment. It's something he hasn't known since the war, and he kisses Steve just a little harder, holds him a little closer, as he works him toward bliss.

*****

Bucky's metal hand is clenched around Steve's throat, squeezing incrementally harder.   
“He doesn't want you.” Bucky's--the Soldier's face-- is twisted with some kind of devilish glee. “He screamed against it the whole time. I could feel him clawing at the back of my brain the entire time you were fucking him. I only let him out far enough to see what you were doing to him. He hates you now. I could hand over control to him right now and he would just finish what I've started.”

Steve tries to pry the Soldier's fingers from his neck, but the grip is too strong. Or maybe Steve's not really fighting it. If Bucky is gone, really gone for good this time, then there's no reason for Steve to keep trying. Tony will get the team back together, he's sure. T'Challa can see to taking out the Soldier. What better way to go than looking at Bucky's face, even if Bucky isn't behind it?

“Stevie?” 

Bucky curls against Steve's back, broad and warm, and Steve's lungs relax enough for him to catch a single breath before he goes back to wheezing. 

“Get under the blanket, punk.” Bucky holds up the covers enough for Steve to scramble in beside him. His arms are warm and strong and feel like heaven around Steve's skinny ribs. “You'll catch your death of cold.”

Bucky kisses Steve's hair, his eyelid, his lips, and each kiss burns like fire against places Steve is always cold.

“You've gotta stay well, doll,” Bucky tells him, rolling so that Steve's bony cheek is cradled by Bucky's chest. “I need my best guy to come back to after I win us this war, yeah?”

“Yeah, Buck.” Steve climbs further across Bucky's body. He straddles Bucky's hips and spreads his thin hands as far across the warm hair on Bucky's chest as they can reach. “You'll come back to me, and then we'll be together for always, right?”

Bucky pulls him down and kisses him deep and wet, and they set up a slow grind together. Steve throws his head back to cry out his pleasure, and Bucky suddenly has him by the throat again, metal fist crushingly strong. 

“First I'll take Barnes, then I'll take Howard.” The Soldier grins up at him, sharp and terrifying. “Then I'll come for Fury, then Wilson, then Stark and the rest of the team. Finally I'll take Peggy, and then, when you're all alone, I'll be back for you.”

“Not Buck,” Steve croaks out. “Leave him. Please, just Bucky. I need him. I love him.”

“Steve!” Bucky shakes him, then shakes him harder, and the dream dissolves slowly. “Wake up, doll! Shit!”

“Buck?” Steve's throat is raw, like he's been shouting, and his body is drenched with sweat. “You...are you okay?”

“Hell no, I'm not okay!” 

The bed shifts and shakes and then the lamp clicks on, blindingly bright after the dark of night. 

“You've been shouting and thrashing around for twenty minutes.” Bucky reaches out with a shaking hand. His face is pale and drawn, and his eyes are full of shadows. “I couldn't wake you up. Of course I'm not okay. Are _you_ okay?”

Steve catches Bucky's hand and holds on hard. 

“I don't know,” he answers honestly, still too shaken from his dreams to try to hide anything. “You...the Soldier. He...He told me he made you...That _I_ made you...That you didn't want me.”

“Oh, Stevie.” Bucky swarms into Steve's arms, cupping his face to kiss him, fierce and possessive. “You idiot! It was a dream, doll. Just a ridiculous, frightened, stupid, _wrong_ dream. I'm right where I want to be, doll. I'm with you, and this’s where I'll always be.”

Steve holds on hard, trying to stop the shaking in his limbs, and Bucky keeps kissing him. Steve finally gets himself together enough to kiss back, and Bucky pins him down to the bed and wraps him up as best as he can. The strength of his vibranium arm makes it surprisingly effective.

“Jesus, Stevie.” Bucky says between kisses. “You scared the shit outta me. I thought...I wondered… You idiot. Of course I want you. Hell, Stevie, I think I need you.”

Steve lets go of the grip he's been trying to get on his emotions and lets the tears and shaking sobs come. Bucky squeezes harder, flesh hand gripping tightly into Steve's hair to hold his face to Bucky's neck. 

“There you go, doll,” Bucky murmurs. “That's right. Time to let it out, sweetheart. You don't have to hold onto it by yourself anymore. I've got you, Stevie. I've got you, and you've got me.”

*****

Steve’s particularly quiet for the next several days, no matter how hard Bucky tries to tease him out of it. Doesn’t stop Bucky from making the attempt. He jokes and goofs around, angles for playful sex, and occasionally strikes various– highly exaggerated– nude poses to try to get Steve to draw him. Steve is on the sofa, holding his notebook but not drawing, when Bucky finally gets tired of his mood.

“For the love of _God_.” He slaps both hands onto his hips and draws himself to his full height in front of where Steve sits. “Steven Grant Rogers, get your ass off that couch and come down to the gym with me. You’re going to burn off this snit, and we’re going to go back to having crazy sex all over the damn place. So help me, if you don’t move _this minute_ , I will throw you over my shoulder and _carry_ your big, dumb, moping ass down there!”

Steve looks up at him and smiles, wry and warm, and Bucky finally breathes a sigh of relief and climbs into his lap, shoving the notebook aside.

“Stevie, doll,” Bucky toys with the back of Steve’s collar, flipping it up and down with one thumb, “you know it’s okay, right? The nightmares and the...the fear. All of it. It’s okay. We’re stuck with it, I think. Both of us. Probably forever. And that’s okay. We’ll get through it. We’ll survive, just like we always have. Remember when you were sure you’d die before twenty? How we’d both mope about it sometimes but we mostly just got on with living?”

Steve’s eyes go wide and startled, and Bucky can’t stop himself from stealing a kiss.

“I’d forgotten all about that,” Steve says, cheeks blushing a soft pink. “Never thought we’d find ourselves, ya know, old.”

“Yeah well.” Bucky pushes his hand through Steve’s silky hair. “Here we are. And we can just get on with living now, okay? You’n me, same as it’s always been. ‘Til the end of the line, pal. You promised.”

“I did.” Steve’s smile gets wider, more real, and Bucky feels the last knot of tension in his back letting go. “Sorry I’ve kinda left you alone the last few days.”

“Is okay, Stevie.” Bucky climbs slowly, reluctantly off of Steve. “I know it takes your dumb brain a few days to process big thoughts.”

He bolts after the insult, knowing Steve will follow.

“Hey!” 

Bucky’s out the door before Steve makes it all the way off the couch, running easily for the gym. Just because Steve seems to be feeling better doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to punch it out, and Bucky intends to be both the target of his physical distress and the cure for it afterward. Steve catches up at the stairs, and then he’s past, leaping lightly to the first landing. 

“Thought you were a supersoldier, slowpoke!” Steve grins up at him and then leaps over the bannister to the next floor down. 

Bucky shakes his head, sucks in a deep breath and leaps after his crazy messed up best friend and best guy, all wrapped up in one perfectly gorgeous package.

Idiot Steve. Most perfect man in the world. Also, four years old and spoiled rotten. 

Steve almost seems back to normal (or what passes for normal when it’s _Steve_ ) by the time they finish on the mats, calling it a solid draw. Bucky would push to keep going, sure he could win just one more match, but Steve’s started to look at him _that way_ again, and Bucky’s not going to miss a chance at rowdy sex with Steve. It’s all been gentle and tender and mournful for the last couple of days, and Bucky needs to blow off some steam. He wants it rough and dirty, plenty of hair-pulling and hopefully a few bruises that last for at least a couple hours.

Steve catches him in the hallway just outside the gym, reeling him close by the collar of his sweaty t-shirt.

“I’m going to make you howl for me,” he hisses in Bucky’s ear. “You deserve it, Buck, and I’m going to give it to you. Make you beg. Make you _ache_.”

The thin knit pants Bucky’s wearing do _nothing_ to preserve his modesty after that, and he stomps back toward their rooms half-mortified and entirely aroused. Steve doesn’t make it any better. _He’s_ wearing a pair of loose jeans, so his interest is better-hidden. Every dozen yards or so, he grabs Bucky from behind and pulls him back, pressing his erection against Bucky’s ass. Every time he does, Bucky’s cock clenches, and he’s sporting one helluva wet spot by the time they get to their floor. 

Bucky fumbles for the knob, and Steve catches him again, turning him around to pin him against the door and kiss him, grinding in hard. All Bucky can do to retaliate is bite Steve’s lip, shamelessly moaning as he sucks at Steve’s mouth. He doesn’t really notice that Steve is being a devious little shit until the door opens and Bucky stumbles backwards into the room. Steve pounces, bearing Bucky all the way to the floor and sitting over his hips.

“Now _this_ is what I want.” Steve pulls Bucky’s pants down just far enough to free the head of his cock. He palms it, smearing the clear drips of precome around and making Bucky writhe. “Have you under me, hard and needy. You ready to beg me yet, Buck?”

Bucky glares at him and catches the edge of the open door with his foot to swing it shut.

“You’ve gotta try harder than that, Stevie.” He folds his hands behind his head and stretches out. He pretends to be unconcerned with his erection, feigns ignoring how good Steve’s fingertips feel as they tease lightly up and down his cock.

“Don’t think it can get _much_ harder.” Steve steadies Bucky’s cock with one hand and grinds forward to rub his own– still covered by a layer of rough denim– against it. “At least, I don’t think so. Maybe we should find out.”

“Yeah, Stevie.” Bucky grins at him. “You do th– Oh Jesus Fuck! Goddamn! Fuck! Fuck! Shit!”

Steve moves as quickly as only a supersoldier can, rolling off of Bucky and ducking his head to swallow Bucky’s cock all the way into his throat. Bucky grabs Steve’s hair and hangs on tightly, determined not to get off just yet, but not sure he’s capable of fighting it off much longer. Sparks start to dance behind his eyes, and he realizes that he started holding his breath at some point, so he blows out explosively and sucks in another great gulp. It’s enough to bring his orgasm racing toward him, and then Steve pulls away with a pop and Bucky’s cock flexes in the air, not _quite_ spraying yet. Three large drips well out and down the shaft, and Steve laughs in delight and licks them away.

“Fuck, you taste so good, Buck.” Steve’s voice is already raspy, and Bucky closes his eyes and whines. Steve licks again, his tongue velvet-rough against the sensitized skin of Bucky’s tip. “Could suck on this forever.”

Bucky writhes as the wet heat of Steve’s mouth envelops him again. His shirt is sticking to him, and it begins to rub raw the skin of his back, but he can’t stop moving. Steve sucks and licks, bobs and swallows around him until Bucky can’t suck in air. Again his orgasm starts to swirl in the pit of his stomach, and again Steve pulls off, blowing hot air across his cock.

“Shitshitshit!” Bucky puts both hands over his face and sucks in a few enormous breaths, already feeling light-headed. “Oh, shit, Stevie! You’re killing me!”

“I don’t want to kill you, Bucks.” Steve licks him like a lollipop, and the entire lower half of Bucky’s body clenches hard. “I want to let you feel how alive you really are.”

“Then get me off, you little shit!”

Steve laughs and licks again, then the hot weight of him is gone from Bucky’s thighs. Bucky lifts one hand off his face to find Steve smiling down at him, mouth a polite bow and his eyes wickedly hot. He reaches down and catches Bucky’s wrist, easily pulling him to his feet.

“First I’m going to get you to the bed.” Steve pulls Bucky in and kisses up the side of his neck. “Then I’ll get you naked. “ He bites lightly at Bucky’s earlobe. “And then I’m going to eat your ass until you’re crying.” He bites the edge of Bucky’s jaw with a bit more sharp pressure. “And then I’m going to fuck you until I fill you up.” He bites lower on Bucky’s neck, where the skin is thin and sensitive, and Bucky groans at the pleasure-pain-pleasure of it. “And then I’m going to play with you until I’m hard enough to fuck you.” 

Bucky cries out softly when Steve steps away from him, the air suddenly feeling cold and empty all around his body.

“And you’re not gonna get to come until I’m inside you and ready to go again.”

“Oh, _hell_ yes,” Bucky says, pushing into Steve’s arms and crowding him down the hall. “Yes, that sounds...let’s do…Fuck!”

Steve laughs, deep and dark and rich and wraps Bucky up in a tight hug.

“We’re gonna fuck, alright, babe.” He initiates a kiss, and Bucky loses himself in it, sinking into the feeling, the taste, the warmth of Steve’s mouth. 

*****

Bucky’s face is flushed, cheeks stained with tears, mouth bitten red by his own teeth when Steve is finally ready to slide back inside him. He’s so covered in shining slick– a mixture of the lube that Steve has been using generously to grease the way and the steady stream of now-milky fluid that’s been running out of his prick for the last thirty minutes– that Steve isn’t sure he’ll be able to get enough of a grip to fuck Bucky’s ass as hard as he wants. Bucky is shaking so hard that all his movements are jerky, and he nearly pokes himself in the eye as he reaches up to wipe some of his sweat-drenched hair from his face. Steve leans down and cups his cheeks with both hands.

“Shhhh, Buck.” He carefully pushes Bucky’s hair back and kisses his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips. “It’s okay. You’re gonna get what you want.”

“Please, Stevie!” A hoarse whisper is all Bucky’s been able to manage for the last fifteen minutes, and Steve has to close his eyes and breathe for a moment. It makes his heart stutter, how incredibly turned on Bucky is, how vulnerable he’ll let himself be for Steve. “Pleasepleaseplease. Fuck...want...fuck...ass...please, Stevie!”

Steve shushes him again and sits back on his ankles, dragging Bucky partially upright and into his lap. Bucky flops forward against Steve’s chest, a puppet with no one holding his strings, and Steve chuckles in absolute delight. Even under anesthetic, Bucky wasn’t this relaxed.

“You’re gonna have to do some of the work here, babe,” he whispers, spreading Bucky’s legs wider and hitching him higher. “At least until you’re on my prick.”

Bucky’s head flops back and he lets out a deep growl, the most sound he’s managed since Steve had wedged most of his fist up Bucky’s ass a quarter of an hour before. He somehow gets his legs under himself, and then he reaches behind himself to steady Steve’s prick. Before Steve’s really ready for it, Bucky drops down onto him, the mixture of lube and Steve’s last spend making the glide effortless. He’s so _hot_ inside, a furnace in a human body, and he’s buttery soft, walls twitching around Steve’s prick, just enough grip without a bit of tension. Steve can’t catch his breath for a long few minutes; it just feels so _good_.

“Come on, Stevie,” Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s neck and holds on, sitting in the cradle of Steve’s legs, body curved to allow him to be fucked and held at once. He tucks his face against the side of Steve’s neck, and that’s the first time Steve realizes how much _he_ is sweating. His shoulder is so wet that he can’t feel the dampness of Bucky’s hair. “Come on. Let's go together?”

Steve kisses him again, even as he starts moving, back and thighs and stomach all working as he fucks into the welcoming heat of Bucky. Bucky's nails rake against his back, and Steve welcomes the sting of it, a point of sharp that grounds him in the storm of pleasure. 

They come close enough together that Steve isn't sure which of them begins first, but he’s sure that Bucky goes the longest. Afterward, Bucky's entirely limp as Steve carefully lowers them both to the bed. He sits up long enough to find the top sheet and a blanket, deciding showers can wait for morning. 

“Love you, Buck.” 

Bucky's almost snoring already, but it feels important to say the words. Steve tugs Bucky's relaxed, sweat-drenched body into his arms. 

“Love you so damn much.”

*****

The one real problem Bucky finds about waking up with Captain America is that it's extremely hard to start the day feeling good about himself. Steve's version of bedhead would make those stylists for photo shoots cry, he's so perfectly, artfully tousled. Bucky always rolls out of bed looking like he's gone three rounds with a grizzly bear...and won. 

It's not so bad when Steve wakes him up, wanting some loving. By the time Bucky sees himself in the bathroom mirror, he can tell himself the tangles in his hair and the flushed puffiness of his face are just leftovers from being mauled by Steve. And, if Steve is willing to do the mauling, Bucky can't look all that bad. The scars on his shoulder and chest are easier to ignore, as are the dozens– hundreds, really– of other scars Bucky's body has picked up over the years when there are livid bite marks across his chest and up his neck. 

But some mornings, the days Bucky gets up while Steve is still sleeping like a princess or the days Steve gets up and heads out to run in the garden, are harder. Bucky’s lost the gaunt hunger of the Soldier, but he's also dropped some of the mass he'd gained while hiding, always being prepared to fight his way free to run. The bones of his face look more like a face that used to look back out of mirrors, a mere ghost of a long-dead memory. It's hard seeing that face over the ruin of the rest of his skin. Makes him think of growing his beard out again, putting on many layers of clothing and his gloves. Hiding what he's become. 

He's having a stare-down with himself one morning as Steve comes into the bathroom for a shower. 

“Buck?” Steve stops behind him, just out of touching range. Bucky wonders if Steve'll ever lose the wariness, if he'll ever be able to see Bucky as just his old pal instead of watching for signs of the Winter Soldier. “What's the matter?”

Bucky lowers his eyes, afraid to let Steve see too much. 

“Nothing. Just…” He has no idea how to continue that sentence. 

Steve bare feet are nearly silent on the tile as he steps close and slides his arms around Bucky's waist. They don't say anything for a long moment, but Bucky sags back into Steve's chest letting himself be held up and held close. They're both shirtless, and Steve's smooth skin is a sleek slide of heaven against Bucky's back. He closes his eyes, not wanting to be distracted by the unfavorable comparison of his own body and face to Steve's.

“My God, Buck! Look at you!” Steve breathes the words reverently, the same tone he always used for his favorite paintings when he used to drag Bucky off to museums. “You're beautiful. Perfect. I still can't believe I get to touch you like this.”

He spreads his hands wide over Bucky's belly, and Bucky opens his eyes to watch in spite of himself. 

“This line right here–” Steve traces his fingers from the center of Bucky’s waistband to the hollow of his throat– “This is what I’ve never been able to capture with a sketch. The way your muscles flex along that line when you move. The way it makes your body look like you’re dancing when you’re standing still.”

Bucky’s breath snags in his throat, a small, wounded sob, and Steve kisses the side of his neck. He shifts and lowers his lips to the mass of scars that surround Bucky’s metal shoulder and kisses across the line where they meet the metal.

“It looks like someone brought a statue to life.” Steve tilts his head to meet Bucky’s eyes in the mirror, but Bucky is too fascinated by watching Steve’s fingertips tracing the dips and whorls of faux-muscle in the metal arm. “Like that one story you made up. Do you remember that? About the statue of a soldier who came to life to stop that one kid– me– from getting picked on.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiles as the memory comes flooding back: a sunlit afternoon, draping himself across Steve’s legs to tell him stories while he drew. Steve’d been too sick to play outside that day, so Bucky had dumped the baseball game and hurried to Steve’s bedside. “Yeah, I remember that.”

“I thought about that a lot, sometimes. Later.” Steve loops both arms around Bucky’s chest and hugs hard. “When you signed up, I thought about that soldier being you. And here you are.”

Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from the way Steve’s hands skim lightly over his chest, his arms, his stomach, his throat. Steve’s hands are beautiful; they always have been, from tiny and delicate to strong and large. Somehow, they seem to be transferring some of their beauty to Bucky as they stroke his skin. The scars they touch stop being ugly flaws and instead become accent marks that tell the story of all Bucky has come through. The swell of his chest seems less a side effect of science and more of something Bucky himself has worked to become. 

“I’m going to miss you so much when I go,” Steve says. “Tomorrow night or the next morning. I...I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I just...I just wanted to hold onto this as long as I could. T’Challa’s heard from Tony. And it’s...it’s time, Buck.”

 

“Pro’bly past time,” Bucky answers, swaying lightly to make Steve move with him. Both of their bodies are starting to become aware of their half-clad, much-touching state, and Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of the feeling of Steve’s erection pressing against his ass. Asked even just a year ago, and Bucky’s sure he would have said that he’d _never_ get turned on for a man, never want a man to get turned on for him. Now he can’t see himself being touched by any hands but Steve’s.

“I kinda hate going, but…” Steve trails off, and Bucky pats the back of his hand. 

“I know, Stevie. You’ve gotta check on your teammates.” Bucky laughs, feeling weirdly lighter. “So is breaking someone out of prison like feeding a stray cat? Do it once, and they’re yours forever?”

“Something like that.” Steve kisses the side of Bucky’s neck again, letting his lips linger and then part for his tongue to flick out and raise goosebumps on Bucky’s skin. “But I mostly want to talk to Tony. I hate you going into the cold, Buck. I _hate_ it.” He buries his face against Bucky’s shoulder and suddenly squeezes hard with both arms. “You’re too far away when you’re like that. And I’m so damned afraid– every time– that something will go wrong and you’ll...you’ll _die_ ”

His voice cracks on the last word, and Bucky reaches up to stroke over his hair. He links the fingers of his flesh hand with Steve’s against his belly and tries to sooth him.

“Nah,” he says lightly as he can around the lump in his throat. “I’m not gonna die. I’ll be here, Stevie. It’s… Cryofreeze isn’t as bad as all that. I mean, I know I’m safe in there. Know that nobody can get to me. That I’m not...I won’t...I’m _safe_ in there.”

“You don’t look it.” Steve’s head snaps up, eyes blazing. “You look frozen, Buck. You look _dead_. And, when you’re in there and I’m off doing...whatever, I just _know_ you’re not in the world. Not...not somewhere I can get to. I can’t even call you. I just...I hate it, Buck.”

“It’s for the best, Stevie.” Bucky straightens up. He can’t have this argument while he’s cuddling with Steve, because he’s _got_ to make Steve see that it’s best. He _has_ to stay under. He’s dangerous, and he’s a risk to T’Challa and Steve and Wakanda and the entire _world_ , if Steve’s not around to contain him. “So just back off.”

“No.” Steve pulls Bucky back into his arms, leaning his cheek against Bucky’s head and meeting his eyes in the mirror. The blue of Steve’s gaze is stormy and angry, but his face looks sad. “I’m not backing off, Buck. I think...I think you need to take another long look at yourself here, try to see yourself through my eyes.”

Bucky’s gaze flits from Steve’s face to his own and back. What he sees is Steve looking particularly horse-faced and jaw-set and himself looking slightly panicked and worried. He also sees Steve’s perfect arms and gorgeous shoulders and his own scars and man-made replacement arm. 

“Buck, you’re not dangerous, not inherently. You went how long without a fight, after the Soldier?”

Bucky sucks in a breath to argue, but Steve's trickier than Bucky would have given him credit for. He slides one hand into the front Bucky's sleep pants and starts exploring with his fingers. Whatever protest Bucky had been gearing up for is gone under the electric charge of arousal. 

It's not fair: Steve isn't supposed to steal ideas from Bucky's playbook. 

“Do you remember that fall you played football?” Steve starts tracing Bucky's chest with his other hand, the one in Bucky's pants being too busy with jacking him off. 

“You went to every practice, right?” Bucky sounds breathy and hoarse even to his own ears. “Said something about Norman Rockwell and daily life sketches.”

“Mostly I just wanted to draw you in your uniform.” Steve tweaks Bucky's nipple and lets go of his cock to play with his balls. “Too handsome to resist. And then you got tackled in your first game out, broke your leg and came home looking like..like you were me after a fight.”

He chuckles, warm and rich as hot chocolate, and Bucky feels the vibrations of that laugh all through his own chest. 

“I can tell you now,” Steve says, and then he stops telling anything and stops playing and offering with his hands. His face goes pink, and Bucky turns his head to get a kiss.

“Tell me anything, Stevie. I...I like remembering all that stuff.” 

“I was actually kinda glad when it happened.” His ears turn a deeper red, and Bucky reaches up with his metal hand to touch the color. “I was so jealous of all the guys on the team. And the cheerleaders. They were...They were a little too interested.”

Bucky laughs then and turns completely in Steve's arms. He takes Steve's face in his hands and kisses him, slow and deep. 

“Come on, Stevie,” he says when he comes up for air. “You hadta know none of them could replace you. Not ever. You were my pal, and there wasn't, there _still_ isn't anyone who could replace you. Especially...You're my safe place, Steve. That has never changed.”

“Then...Then try to hold onto that, babe.” Steve rests their foreheads together, and they both cling to each other a little harder. “Stay awake this time, please?”

“I...I don't know if I can, doll.” Panic makes Bucky's heart beat faster, and he leans harder into Steve's chest. “If...If I say I can't, does that mean you won't fuck me?”

Steve laughs, a bright, unexpected burst, and Bucky feels himself relaxing and smiling sheepishly. 

“There is nothing you could ever say to make me not make love to you.” And then Steve makes a face. “Except ‘no, Steve, I don't want your prick up my ass.’ But that's a given, right?”

Bucky laughs again and sticks both of his hands inside the back of Steve's sweatpants. He kneads the firm globes of Steve's ass and then hooks his thumbs over the waistband to pull them down. 

“Well, I'm not saying no _now_.” He splays his flesh palm wide over Steve's ass and kisses him hard. “So how about you hurry up and get in me?”

“Turn around,” Steve growls, pupils going wide and his eyes darkening. 

Bucky hurries to lean over the bathroom counter, bracing himself on his elbows. He feels strangely vulnerable, nose to nose with his reflection, but he can also look up and see Steve's face, hungry and aroused, so he stays put.

“My _God_ ,” Steve breathes stroking his hands down Bucky’s back. “I can’t get enough of seeing you like this.” The swipe of his palms catches Bucky’s sleep pants and pulls them off his ass, shoves them down his legs. “So trusting. So willing. So _gorgeous_.”

He reaches for his shaving bag and pulls out a bottle of lube. Bucky wonders what the clerk at the store where Steve stocked up had thought. He knows they’ve gone through at least two bottles in their bedroom, maybe more, and the one Steve has now isn’t even open. While Steve wrestles with the tamper proof packaging, Bucky searches for something to distract himself from thinking about how easy it had been for the Soldier to tamper with a few bottles of medication. He snickers to himself and tries to picture the whole scene of Steve's shopping expedition. 

A store clerk staring up at Steve’s shoulders in awe while Steve earnestly starts unloading his shopping cart onto the conveyor belt. Lube, more lube, a box of condoms, protein bars, electrolyte drinks, more lube… And the poor clerk trying not to ask, _fighting_ not to ask, because it looked more like Steve was preparing for an extended orgy than like he was just going to visit his boyfriend. Steve probably looked at them with his mild, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth face, and they would have just swallowed all their questions and been nice to the overly earnest guy with too much sexual lubricant in his cart.

The first press of Steve’s slick-cooled fingers against his hole pulls Bucky right back into the present, and he huffs out a slow breath that fogs the mirror in front of him. Steve presses in slowly, and Bucky gets caught watching his own face. His eyes are wider than usual, dark and wild, and the apples of his cheeks are pink and flushed. His bottom lip is white where his teeth are pushing into it, and he licks it, smiling a little as the pink turns a darker, glossy red. Steve hits something good inside him, and he arches his back, both shoulders flexing, the overlapping plates of the metal moving as smoothly as his flesh.

“Now you’re getting it,” Steve says. Bucky glances up and sees that he’s smiling. “You’re gorgeous like this, Buck.” His hand keeps working slowly, and Bucky lets his eyes half-close as he moans at the sensations. “Every bit of your pleasure just shows on your face, and you go from handsome to...to otherworldly or something. Watch, Bucky. Just watch.”

Bucky feels like his eyes are glued to his reflection, like Steve’s words are an order given to the Soldier. He couldn’t look away if he wanted to, and, as Steve starts to take him apart, he finds he doesn’t want to. Steve vanishes as he drops to his knees, and then Bucky feels the rough-soft pressure of his tongue working alongside his fingers. Bucky wants to close his eyes, but he just _can’t_. Instead, he watches his own face go red and relaxed, lines on his forehead and around his eyes smoothing out as Steve works on him. He braces his hands and pushes up until he’s mostly upright in the mirror, until he can’t hide any of the marks on the front of his torso. The new position also gives him a good look at the way his erection is turning darker red with every lick and push. It’s hypnotic, and he reaches down with his flesh fingers to play with the glossy, purple head, surprised to find he’s already released a large bead of fluid.

“You think you’re ready for me?” Steve kisses Bucky’s hole once more and then blows across the wet skin, chuckling when Bucky shivers. “Because I can keep this up all day if you would rather.”

Bucky thinks about it, thinks about how _good_ it would be to stay on edge for hours, Steve working him loose and sloppy. But then he thinks about how it would be to have Steve fuck him, right there in front of the mirror. How he could let Steve get as deep as he can and still watch his face. 

“No, Stevie.” He’s losing the ability to make sounds. “No, I...Please...fuck me.”

Steve unfolds from the floor in a single, fluid movement, and pushes himself against Bucky’s back, his rigid cock tucking into Bucky’s crack. Bucky moans at the feel of it, so nearly what he wants and so near to where he wants it. 

“I can do that, babe.” He reaches for the slick again. “Edible lube is one of the greatest inventions of the future, Buck. Seriously, lets me get you all soft and ready _and_ lets me get my fingers so deep.”

He backs his hip away and pushes several of his fingers back inside, like he’s trying to prove a point. He hits Bucky’s prostate dead-on, and Bucky keens. It’s almost too much, but _damn_ he wants it to continue forever. 

“Oh, God, Buck.” Steve drops his head to Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky _still_ can’t get why Steve wants him so much. Why he puts so much into getting Bucky turned on, getting him off. Making him feel just… _every_ thing. “The way you feel inside. It’s like...It’s just… _Fuck._ ”

Bucky accidentally whines when Steve pulls his hand free, and Steve kisses the edge of his jaw and pushes him down to his elbows with gentle hands. 

“Shh, babe.” He spends a moment slicking himself up, and Bucky watches his erection gleam and dance in the mirror. If he didn’t want it up his ass so badly, he’d already be on his knees to take it in his mouth. “I know what you want. I’ll give you what you need.”

Steve doesn’t waste time once he’s lined up, just pushes in steady and none too slow, and Bucky finds himself stuck watching his own face again. He sees his mouth drop open in a silent howl of pleasure, watches how his eyes squeeze down like they’re trying to shut, watches the red in his face spill down his neck and out onto his chest. 

“There you go, Buck.” Steve catches his chest with both hands and pulls Bucky upright. “See how gorgeous you are for me? See how perfect?”

And Steve’s not wrong: with the way he’s making Bucky moan for him, the way Bucky’s face has changed from his usual squinched-up tension to...to whatever it’s doing now, Bucky looks completely transformed. Steve cups both of Bucky’s pecs in his hands, squeezing in a hard, slow rhythm that he matches with the sway of his hips. Bucky wants to close his eyes, but he can’t, he can’t look away from the way Steve is touching him, fucking him, making him come apart. 

“Fuck, you feel so good, babe.” Steve digs his fingers into the edges of Bucky’s hipbones and pulls him back for the next thrust with a snap. Bucky moans again. “Aww, yeah you feel good. You feel so hot inside, so slick from my fingers and my tongue. You like it like this?”

He thrusts hard again, and Bucky has to brace his hands on the edge of the counter, clinging to keep himself upright. Behind him, Steve's face is flushed, his eyes sparking with heat as he watches Bucky watch himself. He looks so...proud or something. It creates a heat in Bucky's belly, and he looks away quickly, turning his attention back to watching his own body jolt with every one of Steve's thrusts. No matter what his body may look like, Bucky thinks that at least it can do this: at least it can bring Steve pleasure.

“You gonna go off from my prick alone?” Steve licks the side of Bucky’s neck and then grabs his shoulders to start fucking him in earnest, every thrust sharp and deep and perfect. “Or do you need to grab your own to get there? Come on, Buck, slick up your hand and let me watch you touch yourself.”

Bucky grabs the lube so quickly that he nearly falls over from the way he releases the countertop. He slicks up his flesh hand quickly and then braces his metal arm again and gets to stroking. Steve keeps up his steady stream of dirty talk as they go, his voice hitching every few words as he starts to fuck harder. 

“Yeah, that’s it, Buck. Oh, shit, twist your wrist a little more. Really let yourself _feel_. Come on, babe. Harder. Squeeze it. Really give it to yourself.”

Bucky starts to shake, and it’s getting hard to keep a rhythm. Steve, wonderful, perfect, thoughtful Steve sees him struggling and closes one hand around the back of Bucky’s, bracing him and fucking him at the same time. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna come, Buck.” Steve bites the edge of his shoulder, and Bucky’s answering shout echoes in the shower across the room. “Gonna fill you up so good. Come on, babe, let go for me. Go on, take me with you.”

Three thrusts later, Bucky starts to come, and he shoots the counter, the cupboard door, the floor, his own foot, and all across the back of his hand. Steve’s delighted laugh is cut off by his own orgasm, and he curses and presses in harder, like he’s trying to mark Bucky as deeply as he can. They stand there together afterward, shaking, and then Steve lifts Bucky’s hand to his mouth and licks a trail of the sticky white off the back of Bucky’s knuckle. 

“So damn good, Buck.” He turns Bucky’s head back with his other hand and kisses him hard. “You’ve gotta try this. Go on, babe. Take a lick.”

Feeling very deviant and entirely dirty, Bucky cautiously sticks his tongue out and Steve holds his hand up to his mouth.

“There you go. See?”

Bucky doesn’t see, not really, but he _can_ see the way Steve’s watching him, still very in the moment, so he turns his hand and licks again. Steve bites his lip in answer, swallowing audibly. It’s enough to make Bucky keep going.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, Barnes,” Steve whispers, and then he turns Bucky, takes him in his arms, and kisses the hell out of him. “But if I die from an overload of you and sex, I’ll at least go out happy.”

Bucky laughs and holds on, kissing back. He has one wistful little pang at the thought of Steve being gone again, but he pushes it aside. Right now he wants to focus on the having, not on the losing. There’ll be enough time for that when they have to part.

*****

Steve can tell that Bucky’s getting restless as it gets closer to time for Steve to leave. He’s quieter, a little surly, his face lighting up with that sweet, shy smile of his less and less. Steve wonders if it’s a reaction to Steve leaving or to Steve’s request that he stay awake. Bucky’s been agonizing over that for more than a day. He’ll say he’s ready to stay out, and then five minutes later, he’s tucked into Steve’s arms, apologizing that he can’t do it. Steve kinda hates himself for asking, but he’d just hoped they could at least _talk_ while they’re apart. In case anything goes wrong. In case Steve gets caught.

“T’Challa will come back and tell me,” Bucky whispers against Steve’s neck. “He’s...he’s gonna help us, Stevie. He promised.”

They’re making love again, one last chance to be together, to touch and memorize and to simply _know_ that they’re both still okay. Both still together. At least, that’s what it is for Steve. He _hopes_ it means the same to Bucky. He thinks that, if the way Bucky is moving in him, is holding him and kissing him and whispering so gently to him, is any indication, then Bucky at least feels mostly the same way.

“I just...I hate knowing you’re cold.” It’s ridiculous, but Bucky spent so many years in their childhood trying to keep Steve warm– loaning his coat and his hat, his scarves, his gloves, his own body heat– that Steve somehow feels like cold is an enemy. The Enemy. The cold is what kept them apart so long, after all. 

“Doesn’t feel cold when I’m under, Stevie. You know that.” Bucky hitches Steve’s leg higher, pressing it into his chest so he can change the angle of each thrust. “Doesn’t feel like anything. Can’t even tell time has passed.”

“Maybe that’s what I hate most.” Steve wraps both of his legs around around Bucky’s ribs and clings. “I spend every second missing you, worrying about you, and you’re...you’re just...not there. Not at all.”

“Do you want me to miss you, Steve?” Bucky pushes himself up and tilts his head as he looks down at Steve’s face. “Is that what’s wrong? Because I do, doll. I always do. The second you’re gone, I’m lonely.”

“No, Buck, it’s not...it’s not _that_.” Steve shakes his head and rocks back up to get Bucky moving again. He can’t explain himself any better than he already has. There’s just something about knowing that Bucky’s on ice that sets his teeth on edge. Makes the nights seem darker and lonelier. Makes the future seem more bleak. “It’s okay if you can’t.” Steve pulls Bucky back into his arms and holds on hard. “Just _think_ about it, for next time at least, yeah?”

“Okay, Stevie. For...for you.” Bucky kisses him again then, and they lose themselves in the movement of their bodies, holding on a little harder, kissing a little more deeply. 

Afterward, when they’re in the shower, Bucky brings up the subject again. 

“I’ll try, Stevie.” He’s looking down, watching the lather from his shampoo run around his toes like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. “I’ll...I’ll stay out while you’re gone. But...but if I start to lose it, I’m going back in.”

Steve’s heart leaps into his throat, and he pulls Bucky into his arms and kisses him again, as tenderly as he can manage. 

“I...I brought you a phone.” Now it’s Steve’s turn to look away, and Bucky cups his chin and pulls his face back around so their eyes can meet. “When I came back this time. I didn’t...I wanted to leave it with you, but I was afraid that you’d...I didn’t want to make you think you _had_ to, if you’re not ready yet. But if you’re going to try…”

“You gonna call me to tell me goodnight every night, Rogers?” Bucky’s voice is an amused drawl, and his smirk is bright and playful. “Are we gonna have naughty late night talks? Like that English guy we had with us on that one mission. Remember him? Always taking his pants down in the comm tent when he called his girl.”

Steve laughs with him and they just lean together under the water, sharing air and heat and comfort. 

“I’m gonna miss you like hell, Stevie,” Bucky confesses quietly, and Steve kisses him again and promises that he’s going to feel the same. “Just hurry back, doll. Please? As quick as you can. I _know_ that some things are going to take time. And...and call me, yeah? Tell me what St– _Tony_ says. About my brain. The more I know about it, the more likely I can make a good decision.”

“I know. I will.” 

They hold on a little longer, but Bucky complains that his toes are turning into raisins, so they turn off the water and get out, drying each other off with shaking hands and sad smiles. Steve feels ridiculous, but he even more feels like he’s going to cry. He’s not sure why it’s so hard to leave this time. Unlike the time before, he’s got a promise to come back to. Unlike before, he knows that this parting will be hard on Buck.

Bucky rides to the airport with T’Challa and Steve and several members of T’Challa’s formal guard. He’s wary in the car, but not as nervous as he’d been in the aftermath of his arrest and escape, and Steve thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’ll manage to stay out of the cryochamber for a bit longer. He tells himself not to be disappointed if he comes back to a frozen Bucky, but he can’t deny that the thought of talking to him while they’re apart is making the leaving bearable. He doesn’t tell Bucky that, but, the way Bucky presses his knuckles and smiles crookedly at him tells him that Bucky probably already knows.

They kiss goodbye before Steve boards the plane. T’Challa and all his guards cheer (because apparently Wakandans can’t resist a good romance), and Steve resists the urge to throw them an obscene gesture. He thinks that maybe all the people are happy for his Bucky, a stranger they took in and vowed to protect. He hopes they are, at least, and he hopes he can be good enough for and to Buck for them to accept. Bucky drags him back one last time for a hurried kiss, and then he straightens his shoulders, squares up his hips, and salutes. 

“Safe journey, Captain Rogers.” 

Steve returns the salute, because it just feels right, but he can’t say anything. His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, and he can barely swallow around the weight in his chest. 

Bucky turns and heads toward the car, trying to get out of the open, Steve’s certain. Steve waits for him to look back and waves, and then he hurries into the passenger compartment of the trim little jet that’s waiting on him. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to find a text from Bucky.

_Hurry back to me, doll. If I’m going to be missing you, don’t make me do it too long. I love you, punk._

Steve hurries to tap out a reply, ignoring the knowing grin from T’Challa. 

_Can’t leave my best guy pining for long. Keep up with your physical therapy. I’ll call you when we land. Love you too, jerk._

He hits send and then types one word more.

_Always_

The reply comes moments later, before the plane begins to taxi down the runway.

_Til the end of the line, pal. And maybe even longer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end, my friends. Come find me on tumblr if you ever wanna say hi. 
> 
> There's another part of this story bubbling away back there. But I need to take care of life and another couple stories that had to wait on Steve and Bucky. 
> 
> Your comments and kudos mean the world to me. Thanks, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to be short. I'm still writing the last chapter, and the darn thing is about to cross 50,000 words. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. I'll post as I can, and hope to have it up and complete VERY QUICKLY.
> 
> A million and one thanks to [MrsPoptop](http://mrspoptop.tumblr.com) for the speedy beta, the cheerleading, the tears she's shed over these guys, and all the support in a million and one ways that make her AMAZING. Seriously, I wouldn't be where I am right now without her. Everyone should give her a giant heap of love and thanks. She's BEST!


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